Alithea Fernandes

15th October 2013

Project Bhasha is a Microsoft's innitiative aaimedat accelerating local language computing and taking IT to the masses

The program aims to localize (provide local interfaces to ) Microsoft's flagship products, Windows and Office.

It is a fact that 95 percent of us Indians use our local language rather than English in our work and personal life.

Microsoft Indic Language Input Tool helps you enter Indian language text easily into any application in Microsoft Windows or on any page on the Web.

1. Desktop Version

2. Web Version

Indian Langauges Supported

Operating System Supported

The MILIT can be used in most Windows applications

• Windows Explorer (You can have Hindi file names)

• Word processors and editors such as Microsoft Word and Notepad (You can create Hindi documents)

• Chat clients such as Windows Live Messenger (You can chat in Hindi)

• Email clients such as Microsoft Outlook (You can send emails in Hindi)

• Presentation programs such as Microsoft Powerpoint (presentations

• Web browsers such as Internet Explorer

• Transliteration.

• It also provides a visual keyboard to assist with editing words that do not transliterate properly.

Input Mechanism

What is transliteration?Transliteration refers to the method of mapping from one system of writing to another based on phonetic similarity.

It means that you type words in Roman letters (e.g. a, b, c etc.), and are converted to words that have similar pronunciation in the target language (eg Hindi).

For Example This is my House would return

Therefore one would have to type the word as it is spoken as shown below

ye mera ghar hai . would return

X

√

How do I use Microsoft ILIT to type in Hindi?1.Open the application in which you would like to enter Hindi text.2.Change the language to Hindi using the language bar,which typically appears in the taskbar as follows.

3.The language bar will now show “HI” and the " " symbol to indicate that Hindi is the current language.

4.You can now start typing in English. Whatever you type automatically gets transliterated into Hindi after a word-breaking character like a space, comma, etc. is entered.

While you are typing the Hindi word in English, Microsoft ILIT presents you a list of transliteration options on the fly

You can select any of the five options shown or can alternatively select the English word itself.

If you would like to change a word that is already transliterated, you can do so by right-clicking the word and then selecting an option from the list.

How does Microsoft ILIT handle numbers?

Microsoft ILIT returns the international numerals as the first option and the Hindi numerals as the second.

For example, typing “ " gives “ " followed by “ ".

How does Microsoft ILIT handle punctuation?

Since Hindi uses the Danda (i.e. the vertical bar, ) to denote the full stop, Microsoft ILIT automatically converts the full stop into a

Danda.

EXTRA RESOURCES

• Microsoft Bhasha website http://www.bhashaindia.com

• To download MILIT for individual languages http://www.bhashaindia.com/Downloads/Pages/home.aspx

• Business Standards Magazine Article http://www.business-standard.com/article/specials/microsoft-to-add-more-languages-to-project-bhasha-112022100078_1.html