Hindi Phonetic Transliteration from Google out of Beta
Nagarjuna
Our global friends in Google have taken the really big step in the
politics of virtual democracy. Those of you who may recall that much
activity had been sparked off in this Knowledge Dialogue / Vidya
Samvad group by the Nairobi Paper of Sunil Sahasrabudhey. Many of the
assumptions of Sunil's paper need to be radically rexamined. I was
wondering of Sunil has already done that.
Google Blogs has been experimenting with a feature called
transliteration. Essentially this means that if you know the right
English words and a suitable vocabulary in Hindi, you can use all the
push button, free Information Technology and Internet enablements of
the modern world, to push your messages to an essentially Hindia
reading audience. Phonetic equivalents of English words, will be
automatically converted into Hindi script.
In effect, an Oxbridge scholar, can keep pursing his / her arguments,
about the caste system in India, and and get away with all nonsense,
even as the global Google network, translates varying levels of
intellectual trash, into consumable Internet content, readable in
Hindi, to an essentially Hindi speaking audience.
Do we understand the full import of this development in the light of
the central third thesis of Sunil's Nairobi paper ? In my opinion the
question of the content, of emancipatory knowledge, is now suddenly
unleashed upon us, even as we had been trying to cope with and debate
things like preponderance of English, globalization, and Internet /
mobile technologies, on the knowledge world and its relationship with
society. I have a feeling that Sunil's Nairobi paper needs a very
radical re examination.
Happy Hindi transliterations and blogging, to all the fortunate ones
with broadband Internet connections.
Warm Regards,
Nagarjuna