Bangla Typewriter

[Vinay Pettyjohn]

Withthe advent of graphical user interfaces and word processing in the 1980s, a number of computer typing systems for Bengali were created. Most of these were originally based on Apple Macintosh systems.

Shahidlipi was the first Bengali keyboard developed for the computer by Saifuddahar Shahid in 1985. It was a phonetic based layout on QWERTY for Macintosh computer.[1] This keyboard was popular until the release of Bijoy keyboard. There were about 182 characters and half part of conjunct characters under Normal, Shift, AltGr, and Shift AltGr layer.[2]

Munier keyboard layout comes from a Bengali typewriter layout named Munier-Optima. In 1965, Munier Choudhury redesigned the keyboard of Bengali typewriter in collaboration with Remington typewriters of the then East Germany.[3] Munier-Optima was the most-used typewriter in Bangladesh. So, many software developers implemented this layout on their keyboard. This layout is optimized for Unicode by Ekushey.

UniJoy keyboard was standardized by Ekushey for Unicode.[4] It was included in the m17n database by Kenichi Handa under the GNU Lesser General Public License on 7 December 2005 under the copyright of the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST).[5][6]

In 2004, an initiative was taken to develop a national Bangla computer keyboard. The initiative was taken to solve the problem caused by the existence of multiple keyboards (such as Bijoy, Bashundhara, Munier, Borno, Lekhoni etc.) in Bangladesh during that period, to set a standard standard of Bengali keyboard. In view of this, the Bangladesh Computer Council completed the task of formulating the National Bangla Computer Keyboard by reviewing the various Bangla keyboards existing in the country.[7]

Following the review of Bangladesh Computer Council, BSTI declared the keyboard as the national standard for Bengali computer keyboard known as Bangladesh Standard BDS 1738:2004. Letters and symbols are arranged in total 4 levels in Jatiyo Bangla keyboard. The most frequently used letters, symbols and ligatures are arranged in the 1st and 2nd levels, while the less frequently used letters and symbols are placed in the 3rd and 4th levels.

Meanwhile, the National Committee on Standardization of Bengali Language in Information Technology felt the need to modernize the existing National Bengali Computer Keyboard. In view of this, BCC carried out the modernization work and sent it to BSTI, which approved the work as BDS 1738:2018. Bangladesh Computer Council develops Windows and Linux software for national keyboard use.

This keyboard layout is designed in order to type all the Indic scripts with a uniform layout on computer. This layout is officially accepted by Microsoft Corporation and is provided by default in their Windows operating system. It is also available on macOS, alongside Bengali-Qwerty. This layout is popular mainly in India.

Probhat (Bengali: প্রভত) is a free Unicode-based Bengali fixed layout. Probhat is included in almost all Linux OS(s). Its key mapping is similar to Phonetic pattern but typing method is fully fixed.

Bijoy keyboard layout is a proprietary layout of Mustafa Jabbar. It is licensed under the Bangladesh Copyright Act 2005.[8] Bijoy keyboard, with related software and fonts, was first published in December 1998 for Macintosh computer. Windows version of Bijoy Keyboard was first published in March 1993. The first version of Bijoy software was developed in India (possibly by an Indian programmer). Subsequent versions were developed in Bangladesh by Ananda Computers' team of developers including Munirul Abedin Pappana, who worked for Bijoy 5.0, popularly known as Bijoy 2000.[9] Version 3.0 is the latest version of Bijoy layout. Bijoy keyboard was most widely used in Bangladesh until the release of Unicode-based Avro Keyboard. It has an AltGr character and vowel sign input system with its software different from the Unicode Standard. This ASCII-Unicode based Bengali input software and requires the purchase of a license to use on every computer.

Baishakhi keyboard is developed by Society for Natural Language Technology Research (SNLTR).[10] It is mainly used in Indian governmental work. This layout is available in most common Linux Distribution OS.

Gitanjali Keyboard is customized for Unicode compliant to Uni Gitanjali Keyboard by Society for Natural Language Technology Research (SNLTR).[11] It is mainly used in Indian governmental work. This layout is available in most common Linux Distribution OS.

Disha keyboard is based on Probhat layout and created by Sayak Sarkar.[12] This layout is available the m17n database as proposed by Ankur Group. This keyboard aims to create a visual typing method for Bengali.

Akkhor (Bengali: অক্ষর) pronounced kkhr Bangla Software, developed by Khan Md. Anwarus Salam,[13] was first released on 1 January 2003 for free. The Unicode/ANSI-based Akkhor Keyboard is compatible with fixed keyboard layouts, including the Bijoy keyboard. Akkhor also provides a customization feature for designing fixed keyboard layouts.[14] It provides a Keyboard Manager, which works system-wide and also provides an independent Akkhor Word processor.[15]

Bakkhor (portmanteau of বলয় সক্ষর, meaning Bengali literacy) Developed by Ensel Software and available online. It is an open-source JavaScript based. It allows some letters to be typed in multiple ways in order to type using lower case letters only in mobile devices.

Bangla Onkur (Bengali: অঙ্কুর) pronounced onkur, developed by S. M. Raiyan Kabir, was first released on 30 March 2011 as an open-source software. It facilitates only phonetic typing in Macintosh platform. Bangla Onkur phonetic allows a user to write Bengali by typing the phonetic formation of the words in English language keyboards. This is the first phonetic input method developed for Mac OS X.[19]

This is an m17n library, which provides the Saon (Bengali: শওন) Bengali input method for touch typing in Bengali on Linux systems and the project was registered by its creator, Saoni at SourceForge on 8 July 2012.[20] This free and open source IM is Unicode 6.1 compliant in terms of both normalization and number of keystrokes used to input a single character. Saon Bengali enables touch typing so if a user can type in English, they won't have to look at the keyboard to type in Saon Bengali. It is also phonetic and has something in common with all Bengali phonetic layouts making the transition smooth for new users. As of July 2012 it not yet a part of the m17n-contrib, which allows installation of all m17n contributed libraries through Linux's software channels and it may be too early to say whether it will be incorporated. This depends firstly on its author and then if it is offered to m17n then probably on m17n. The m17n IM engine currently works with IBus inter alia on Linux. The copyright notice on Saon says, "You can redistribute this and/or modify it under the GNU LGPL 2.1 or later."

Open Bangla Keyboard is an open source, Unicode compliant, Bangla input method for Linux systems. It is a full-fledged Bangla input method with many famous typing methods and typing automation tools.

OpenBangla Keyboard comes with the popular Avro Phonetic, which is the de facto phonetic transliteration method for writing Bangla. It also includes multiple fixed keyboard layouts such as Probhat, Munir Optima, National (Jatiya) etc., which are very popular among professional writers.

Borno (Bengali: বর্ণ) is a free Bengali input method editor developed by Jayed Ahsan. Borno is compatible with the latest version of Unicode and all versions of Windows OS. It was first released on 9 November 2018.

The Bengali keyboard layout used in mobile devices is typically a modified version of the PC's keyboard, tailored to fit the relatively smaller screen. For instance, the Unijoy keyboard designed for desktop PCs is adapted as Unijoy (Virtual) Keyboard for mobile devices. There is also software for users for typing Bengali on mobile phones and smartphones.

Gboard is a virtual keyboard app developed by Google for Android and iOS devices. It supports several Indic languages, including Bengali. It offers a handwriting input method, voice typing and a Latin letter transliteration layout, as well as a traditional Bengali keyboard.[23] It also supports GIF suggestions, options for a dark color theme or adding a personal image as the keyboard background, support for voice dictation, next-phrase prediction, and hand-drawn emoji recognition.

Borno (Bengali: বর্ণ) a 100% ad-free Bangla input method editor for Android,[24] maintained and developed by Jayed Ahsan; Codepotro.[25] The open-source version is licensed under GPL 3.0. while the regular version is available on Google Play Store. It has 9 different Bangla keyboard layouts including Borno Phonetic, which is a phonetic keyboard layout like Avro. It is still under development.[22]

OpenBoard is a free and open-source keyboard based on AOSP, which includes Bengali layouts. It comes with three Bengali Fixed Layouts including Akkhor Layout. OpenBoard is a privacy-focused keyboard that does not contain shortcuts to any Google apps, has no communication with Google servers. It supports Auto Correction, Word Suggestion for Bengali Language.[26][27]

Indic Keyboard[28] is a free and open-source keyboard software for Android developed by Indic Project, available under Apache License. It supports common Bengali layouts, namely Probhat, Avro and Inscript.

LIKE many chapters of our national history, the amazing journey of digital Bangla -- from English to Bangla computing -- remains largely unknown. Conversant persons should record that history for the new generations. This article however is not an effort to write that history. Rather, I share with you how few geniuses of our time are changing the way we write Bangla on our computers.

There were three major challenges for Bangla to be written using a computer -- Bangla keyboard, software for the background processing (the main programming), and fonts to display the characters.

Computer keyboards inherited the QWERTY layout (placement of alphabets on keyboard) from typewriters, which were developed in 1874. So instead of inventing a Bangla keyboard altogether, all we needed for Bangla typing was to determine where to place Bangla alphabets on an English keyboard -- be it for typewriter or computer.

In 1965, Munir Chowdhury developed a Bangla layout for a typewriter's QWERTY keyboard to reduce jamming of type-bars and increase the typing speed. This was the first scientific Bangla layout. It was later used in computer keyboards.

But for a computer, having a keyboard "layout" is not enough. We needed software that could process the meaning of the pressed Bangla-labelled key, and fonts-set that could show the Bangla alphabets on the computer screen.

Though there were a number of individual initiatives, "Shahid Lipi" was the forerunner of first-generation Bangla solutions and the first complete Bangla computing interface. Saif Shahid began working on this in 1983 and a complete Macintosh-based version appeared in the market in 1985. He provided a set of Bangla fonts and also offered a Bangla layout, different from the one developed by Munir Chowdhury.

A number of second-generation Bangla solutions hit the market by the end of 1990s. Bijoy, Proshika-shobdo and Proborton led this campaign. While most of them offered unique keyboard layouts, many did not follow the required level of research that Bangla key layout needed.

Since memorising different layouts can hinder the acceptance of new software and make typing complex, some suggested the use of the Munir layout as a basis for further development of Bangla layouts. Later on, Bangladesh Computer Council standardised this layout in National (Jatiya) keyboard layout.

However, continuity and compatibility remained a major problem for many of these second-generation solutions. Mustafa Jabbar addressed this issue by offering long-term entrepreneurial support through Ananda Computers, which hosted a bright team of software developers.

The first version of Bijoy "software" was developed in India (possibly by an Indian programmer). Subsequent versions were developed in Bangladesh by Ananda Computers' team of talented developers including Munirul Abedin Pappana who worked for Bijoy 5.0, popularly known as Bijoy 2000.

From the beginning Mustafa Jabbar provided a different layout for the software, now known as Bijoy layout. Yet, Ananda Computers could easily convince users to accept another new key layout to memorise because of the strong compatibility of its software with other programs. Bijoy software (especially Bijoy 2000) at that time became the most compatible Bangla software to support available publishing software.

However, sharing Bangla texts -- over the internet or between computers -- remained a major predicament. Both parties needed to have similar set of Bangla fonts installed on their computers; otherwise the garbled texts weren't readable. Bangla writing also remained unpopular to the non-professional users who felt discouraged to memorise a complex Bangla layout.

In 1996, the software industry entered the realm of Unicode 2. Unicode -- a universal character-encoding standard that was first developed in 1987 -- allowed virtually any letter from any language of the world to be coded and used under one single standard. Unicode opened up the possibility of having Bangla software that could be used without having to think too much about the fonts.

A number of talented developers in Bangladesh began to experiment with new Bangla software. Many were also influenced by the global Open Source campaign and created Bangla software for platforms such as Linux Mint and Ubuntu, which traditional software could not support.

Through these experiments came a number of Unicode supported software including Ekusheyr Shadhinota and Avro. Later, some traditional software also offered Unicode versions. Though the marvel of these third-generation Bangla software was in their programming, they also wanted to make sure that no one needed to go through another painful process of memorising another keyboard layout.

So, instead of one complex layout to memorise, they included a phonetic keyboard which does not require memorising of the whole layout. For instance, to write pau-phau-bau-bhau-mau one just needs to type P-F-B-V-M. This generated widespread acceptance among individual users.

They also kept the traditional key layouts as an extra option for those who had already memorised them. However, to better suit Unicode and possibly to avoid other patented layouts, these optional layouts did not follow traditional layouts completely.

For instance, the optional layouts of Ekushey and Avro differ from Bijoy and National layouts in some keystrokes and on vowel grapheme. But the unique architectures of the software made it possible to run on versatile platforms (e.g. Linux) where traditional software lagged behind.

Amazingly, most of the third-generation software do not have any business motive and are offered for free. To highlight the significance of being legally free, let me share with you one anecdote.

Before the last national election, the Bangladesh Election Commission conducted the national ID card program, the largest data collection initiative ever carried out in Bangladesh. But the commission faced huge expenditure when it needed to buy licensed Bangla software for each of the thousands of computers/laptops to be used in the project. One of the lowest offers they got from a local Bangla software company accounted Tk.50 million (five crore). Mehdi Hasan Khan, the creator of Avro, let his software be used for free!

I often try to grasp how much love is needed for one's language to be so self-sacrificing. It shouldn't come as a surprise though. After all, in the past we have sacrificed lives to keep our language free.

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