WO2006117798A1

WO2006117798A1 - A universal method for typing indian scripts and other scripts

Info

Publication number: WO2006117798A1
Application number: PCT/IN2005/000416
Authority: WO
Inventors: Jugal Kishore Gupta
Original assignee: Jugal Kishore Gupta
Priority date: 2005-04-29
Filing date: 2005-12-19
Publication date: 2006-11-09

Abstract

A universal method for typing all Indian scripts and other scripts using a standard English keyboard has been developed. This method called LIPIKAAR is such that anyone already proficient in typing on an English keyboard (QWERTY or any other) can start typing in a script of his choice. The IPIKAAR method is applicable for all Brahmi based scripts: Devnagari, Bengali, Tamil, Telugu, Assamese, Gujarati, Kannada, Malayalam, Oriya, Punjabi and for Perso Arabic based Scripts: Urdu, Sindhi & Kashmiri. The resulting overlay is universal in nature and can be adapted for many other scripts of the world.

Description

A universal method for typing Indian scripts and other scripts

Technical Field

The invention pertains to the field of typing methods for non-English scripts such as Indian scripts and the resulting overlays. More particularly, the invention pertains to methods that allow users of non-English scripts to type intuitively and with ease on a standard English keyboard without having to remember complicated overlays, put stickers on keys, or compromise on the usage of special characters and occasional English words.

Background Art India has more than ten officially recognized languages. With the widespread use and rapid advancement of computer technology, there arises a need for a common method of typing these scripts with a standard English keyboard without the user requiring extensive training. Moreover, the method must suit the needs of both occasional and regular users of the native scripts.

At present, many different keyboard layouts are in use for Indian regional scripts.

Some of the prominent ones are:

INSCRIPT₁ ASTERIX, ENGITR, NEWROMA, SCRIPT,

ABITRCOMPSET, GODREJ, K_P_RAO, RAJYA, SCRIPT1 , AKRUTI, CRTRONIC, GODREJ1 , MTNK, RAMING, SRG₁

AKSHAR.DEVYANI, INDICA, NAIDUNIA₁ RAMING2, TYPEWRIT,

APPLE, DOE, NETWORK, ROMA

All these overlays follow the basic approach of laying the Indian script alphabets over the English keyboard in manner that the designer of the overlay thought prudent. Since the Indian script alphabet set is much larger than the English alphabet set, these overlays usually spreads across to numeral and other special symbol keys. User has to necessarily put stickers or print otherwise the Indian script legends alongside the English legends on the key tops. Users of these overlays require considerable practice and familiarity before one can use them effectively.

In addition there are some phonetic or "type as you spell English" keyboard layouts. These layouts, owing to inherent ambiguities, are not simple to understand and use. Their providers themselves do not recommend them for professional use for Indian scripts.

In contrast, the present invention is based on some 'easy to understand methods.¹ Once these methods are understood, user familiar with typing on English keyboard can start typing in the native script of his choice without having to learn a specific overlay or having to put stickers for the Indian script legends alongside the English legends on the key tops

Disclosure of the Invention A universal method for typing all Indian scripts and other scripts using a standard English keyboard has been developed. This method called LIPIKAAR is such that anyone already proficient in typing on an English keyboard (QWERTY or any other) can start typing in a script of his choice without having to learn a new keyboard overlay. The method uses only the basic alphabets keys to generate the script alphabets, so that all the punctuation characters and other special characters available on the standard Computer keyboard are available for use in the non- English text.

The LIPIKAAR method is applicable for all Brahmi based scripts: Devnagari, Bengali, Tamil, Telugu, Assamese, Gujarati, Kannada, Malayalam, Oriya, Punjabi, and Perso Arabic based scripts: Urdu, Sindhi & Kashmiri. The method and its design principles are universal in nature and can be adapted for many other scripts of the world.

The LIPIKAAR method offers following advantages:

a. It is very simple to understand and use. Once the basic approach is understood, anyone knowing English typing can start typing in any of the Indian languages without any training b. The resulting overlay is so simple to understand and use that one need not put overlay stickers on the English keyboard. It uses only the basic alphabets & Full-stop keys and optionally the Shift key to generate the script. c. Unlike some "phonetic" overlays, there is absolutely no ambiguity in its usage. There is a specific key-stroke for each of the alphabets, matras, vowels, special characters, and alternate forms of characters. It can be easily adapted for most scripts. d. It is suitable for typing bilingual (English and selected script) text. e. It requires minimum number of strokes to type the text precisely. It uses only the printable English alphabets, leaving most of the punctuation and special symbols free for use in the bilingual text. f. It incorporates provision to accommodate alternate forms, derivative forms and special characters that may be available in a script. g. Typing in LIPIKAAR is strictly spelling based and is not affected by the conjuncts (character forms representing combination of multiple alphabets) that may be available in a script. h. The same keyboard overlay is applicable for all Brahmi based scripts: Devnagari, Bengali, Tamil, Telugu, Assamese, Gujarati, Kannada, Malayalam, Oriya, Punjabi and Perso Arabic based Scripts: Urdu, Sindhi & Kashmiri. The overlay is universal in nature and can be adapted for most other scripts of the world. i. Since it allows precise typing of any script using only alphabet keys and full- stop, the same overlay can be used in mobile phones and other hand-held devices.

Detailed Description of the Invention

The Lipikaar method and its corresponding keyboard overlay cannot be effectively described in isolation without illustrating it with one of the target scripts. In the description herein, the Devnagari script has been used to describe the Lipikaar method in detail. Lipikaar is suitable for occasional users of the script who do not mind typing a little slow but want to avoid investing time in learning, as well as for those users who need to type fast.

For occasional users:

For most Devnagari characters, we type the phonetically (and intuitively) corresponding English alphabets repeatedly (i.e. multiple strokes) until we get the desired character. Thus, we type

Similarly, using the rule of typing the designated key multiple times until we see the right script character, we can type:

z for I

The English alphabet x has not been assigned any script alphabet.

It is used for typing half alphabets that are common in Indian script.

For half characters, type x after the alphabet, e.g., user will type k followed by x to make it half, followed by y and a to get the Hindi word g=∑iτ i.e. kxya;

For conjuncts of T with other preceding script alphabets, we type "r" requisite number of times to get the right conjunct. When r is typed more than once it generates a conjunct with the preceding typed character. For example, if we type k, followed by rr it becomes sfr and if k is followed by rrr it becomes eg. Thus we type krrrpa to get ^qT.

For "Nukta" (dot below the character) character, we type full-stop after the character. e.g.,

Irrespe ms, the characters are to be typed in phonetic order, e.g. for

we type budxdda

Matras, d after the alphabet, e.g., For

For regular (fast) users: In addition to all above mentioned features, for faster typing, some users my prefer the use of Shift rather than typing the same character twice as described in the method above.

These users, instead of typing a character twice, can type Shift+Character once e.g., for W, instead of kk, one can also type Shift-k.

Since characters

all correspond to letter t , they can all be typed by typing "t" requisite number of times. However, for faster typing, one can type t for el, ^§T and type shift+t for Έ, ^~δ. Likewise, one can type d for ^~ξ, εr and shift+d for ^"s; S.

e v before the alphabet, e.g.,

The following tables give a summary of recommended strokes for fast typing in Devnagari.

Note: In the following table, uppercase letters imply typing the character with Shift.

For matras, type the corresponding English vowels.

Miscellaneous:

Special feature to accommodate alternate & derivative forms of an alphabet:

Some scripts have alternative forms of same characters such as π , ?r , ^r in Devnagari. LIPIKAAR uses several mechanisms to represent alternative forms, derivatives and similar alphabets.

a. Multiple pressing of a key to get successive alternate forms: For example, b. Shifted position: For example,

c. Pressing of one or more v before the character for special derived characters: For example,

Bilingual Text

LIPIKAAR allows easy switching between English and the script of one's choice: "CapsLock OFF " selects English and "CapsLock ON " selects the other script.

Typing text in other Brahmi based scripts Since all Brahmi based scripts namely Devnagari, Bengali, Tamil, Telugu, Assamese, Gujarati, Kannada, Malayalam, Oriya and Punjabi have phonetically similar alphabet sets, typing in each of them is identical to typing in Devnagari as shown in the Table A below.

Similarly, for non-Brahmi scripts such as Urdu and other Perso-Arabic scripts, the same methods can be applied as shown in Table B.

Table A: Illustrates how Lipikaar based typing is common across all Brahmi scripts: Devnagari (DEV), Punjabi (PNJ), Gujarati (GJR), Oriya (ORI), Bengali (BNG), Assamese (ASM), Telugu (TLG), Kannada(KND), Malayalam (MLM), Tamil (TML). The first column shows the English key/character that the user types. The remaining columns show the phonetically corresponding script alphabet.

Table B: Illustrates how the same method of Lipikaar based typing applies to Urdu and similar Perso-Arabic scripts.

Modes for carrying out the invention

This invention can best be carried out as a software that converts the keyboard strokes or keyboard codes into a form suitable for the system software or the application software as per the methods described above. If required, this software can also be embedded in the keyboard logic.

Industrial Applicability

This invention is useful in all applications where a non-English script, particularly Indian script, needs to be typed through a keyboard. It can be used in Newspaper offices and publication houses for preparing text in non- English scripts. It can be used in other offices and homes for correspondence, email and text-chat over the internet. It can also be used in mobile phones for SMS applications.

Claims

1. A method of typing a non-English script using a keyboard with an English overlay characterized by , a. to type each of the characters of the script, one types the phonetically corresponding English alphabet key or other designated key repeatedly until one gets the desire script character, and b. If same alphabet of the script is to be typed one after the other, one types either some other character and backspace or a designated 'null' character in between

2. A method of typing a non-English script using a keyboard with an English overlay characterized by, in addition to methods described in claim 1 , a. to get special characters, conjuncts and forms, one types a designated English alphabet key (which has not been assigned for typing script character as per claim 1 ) followed by either a phonetically corresponding English alphabet key or another designated key, one or more times, and b. to get "part (halant, soft)" character form (if applicable for the script) of a script character, one types a designated English alphabet key

(which has not been assigned for typing script character as per claim 1 ) one or more times after the script alphabet

3. A common method of typing for all Brahmi based Indian scripts namely Devnagari, Bengali, Tamil, Telugu, Assamese, Gujarati, Kannada, Malayalam,

Oriya, and Punjabi, all of which have a phonetically common alphabet set, characterized by - to get the conjunct of 7 and w with the preceding script alphabet, one types "r" requisite number of times. ( note: T and W have been represented here in Devnagari script, their equivalents are available in all Brahmi based scripts )

4. A common method of typing for all Brahmi based Indian scripts namely

Devnagari, Bengali, Tamil, Telugu, Assamese, Gujarati, Kannada, Malayalam, Oriya, and Punjabi, all of which have a phonetically common alphabet set, characterized by

a. the user types one or more times, without using the Shift key the following English alphabet to get the assigned Brahmi script alphabet, (illustrated here with the Devnagiri script):

b. the user types the alphabet v followed by the assigned English alphabet one or more times, to get vowels and special characters of the selected Brahmi script as per the following assignments, (illustrated here with the Devnagiri script):