Google Transliteration now Available in Urdu and Punjabi
Vinay
And here comes the greatest thing since sliced bread, thanks to
Google.
http://www.google.co.in/transliterate/Urdu
======
Google Transliteration now Available in Urdu and Punjabi
(http://googleindia.blogspot.com/2009/07/google-transliteration-now-
available-in.html)
Thursday, July 30, 2009 | 1:33 PM
Labels: Google Transliteration, Punjabi, Urdu
We firmly believe that users deserve a great online experience
regardless of the language they speak. This belief is what inspired us
to build our transliteration service to provide an easy and intuitive
way to type in languages for which keyboard support was not available
or not widely used. We are happy to announce the launch of
transliteration support for Urdu and Punjabi. Transliteration allows
users to type words phonetically using their english keyboard. For
example, in Urdu, you can type "shukriya" to get شکریہ and in Punjabi,
you can type "duniya"to get ਦੁਨਿਯਾ . If a word did not get
transliterated correctly, hit the backspace key or select the word to
see list of alternatives to select from. Typing Control + G allows you
to switch between english and local language typing.
Launching Urdu and Punjabi has been a true labour of love for our
team. Urdu brought with it some unique challenges: since it is written
right to left, we needed to ensure that editing functions such as
backspace, tab, etc all work as expected. Urdu diacriticals, or
'Aerabs', also needed special attention as they map the vowel sounds
but are not necessarily visible in the word. For Punjabi, the 'addak',
'tippi' and 'bindi' posed its own challenge as they change the
intonation of the previous character. We hope that Urdu and Punjabi
speakers in India, Pakistan and elsewhere in the world find this tool
useful to type in their native language.
premc...@gmail.com
This is wonderful. Is there some way of changing the urdu font?? I
wish the Urdu font was Nastaleeq.
Can we increase the size of the urdu script?
Prem Joshi
Jamil
wrote:
Vinay Ji, thank you for posting this information. I typed a sentence
and the only word that I needed to edit and choose an alternative for,
was baRi, since I first got bari.
شکریہ مجھے اس بات سے بڑی مسرّت ہو رہی ہے
I was able to increase the size of the font by highlighting the
sentence and pressing Control and + in Firefox.
About naskh or nasta'aliiq: How many times have I wished that naskh
were the standard script for Urdu. In the 1960s, it was decided by the
authorities in Pakistan to introduce naskh in school textbooks so that
children grow up using naskh and eventually naskh becomes the standard
script. They did change the textbooks but in a half-hearted way. The
books were still written by hand by calligraphers and as time passed,
one saw the naskh character of the writing slowly giving way to
nasta'aliiq till the transformation back to nasta'aliiq was total.
This meant that we lost the chance to start using the typewriter as
was being done for Farsi and Arabic. One newspaper in Pakistan, Nawaa-
e-waqt had started printing one page daily in naskh, but it too soon
gave up.
Computers and Urdu word processing technology have rescued the
situation greatly. Even if the communication using Urdu over the
Internet is not easy, at least now books and newspapers are invariably
utilizing word processing software for nasta'aliiq and are clear and
unambiguous to read.
Nasta'aliiq does have its charm, even if it is less practical than
naskh. It is so elegant! Even though Farsi books are in naskh and
handwriting of the people is in naskh, it is nasta'aliiq that is used
in calligraphy and art, simply because it is beautiful. Also it is
much more economical than naskh, which for newspapers becomes
critical. Urdu script in general and nasta'aliiq in particular is a
sort of semi-shorthand.
Google, it seems, has come to my rescue. Now when I send an email in
Urdu, I don't have to use Roman script and no one needs to find out
that I don't know whether the word is ' gaya' or 'giya' and whether I
should write 'taraf' or 'tarf'. Naseer Sahib, no need to take the
trouble of telling me what the correct form is: I don't need it any
more.
Jamil
Naseer
muHtaram Jamil Sahib, aadaab.
My views mirror your thoughts. I often cringe at the quality of
nasta'liiq in some of the books. Often it is difficult to decipher
words. I have always felt that nasKH should be used in print despite
all that is good in nasta'liiq. And yes, I agree. Writing in Urdu
covers up a multitude of "sins". Let the reader provide the correct
vowels!:)*
*PS One has to admit that typing Urdu in Roman does make one think
whether the word is "taraf" or "tarf". Is n't it good to know the
correct form of the word?
Naseer
Asif
ونے صاحب بہت بہت شکریہ، دل خوش ہو گیا یہ خبر پڑھکر
Asif