| Google Indic Transliteration |
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Google Indic Transliteration offers an
option for converting Roman characters to the Devanāgarī
characters used in Hindi. This lets you type Hindi words
phonetically in English script and still have them appear in
their correct alphabet. Note that this is not the same as
translation -- it is the sound of the words that are
converted from one alphabet to the other, not their meaning.
For example, typing "hamesha" transliterates into Hindi as:
1. How do I use transliteration to type in Hindi? The transliteration feature is controlled by
the button at the top left corner of the text box. This button toggles the transliteration feature on and off. (You can also use Ctrl-G as a shortcut.) When it is on, it affects the text box contents. The letters of a word will appear as you type them until you reach the end of the word. As soon as you type a space or a punctuation mark, the letters will be converted to Devanāgarī characters, like this:
The transliteration will attempt to match the sounds of the letters as accurately as possible between the two alphabets. However, if you find that it is incorrect, you can fix it. 2. How do I correct and edit words? When you find a word you want to change,
just click on it once, using the left mouse button. This
displays a short menu of alternate spellings, as well as an
option to switch back to the original Roman characters you
typed, or to edit the word further. If you choose the "Edit..." option, you'll see the word in an Edit mode that
provides on-the-fly suggestions for the next letter in the sequence. Click on
the letter you want to enter next, it will be added to the word, and
suggestions for the following letter will come up. You can also continue typing
from your keyboard as well, if you prefer, and the characters will be entered
according to this
chart. Type a space or press the Enter key to end the word and go back to
normal typing mode. The suggestions provided in the "Edit..." option are limited to letters which could reasonably follow the ones already typed. Each button shows some English text in gray, which indicates the part of the last syllable that you have already typed. The text in bold indicates what you can type to get the Hindi letter displayed on that button. Alternatively, you can just click the button and it will add the correct letter for you. If a button is green, that means that the letter is phonetically similar to the last typed syllable, and clicking on the button will replace it.
3. How do I use the on-screen keyboard? If you want complete control over the choice of letters, click the keyboard icon to the right of the word you're editing. A full on-screen keyboard comes up, and you can simply click the letters you want to insert them into your text.
Matras (accent marks) are shown with dotted circles to indicate that they can be applied to different letters. To use them, first click the letter you want to use, then click the matra you want to apply to it. For example, to type द्या pronounced "dya",
Type a space, punctuation mark or the Enter key to end the word and go back to normal typing mode, or just click the "X" icon on the keyboard to remove it. 4. Does my system support transliteration? The transliteration feature is only supported in Internet Explorer versions 6.0 and higher on Windows (preferably Windows XP), and Firefox 1.5 and higher on Windows and Linux. 5. How do I install and view Hindi fonts correctly? The Transliteration page uses Unicode to encode the Hindi
characters in your post. Unicode is a system of representing
text and symbols and is supported by all modern browsers and
operating systems.
If you use Internet Explorer 6+ in Windows Vista/XP/2000, you should have no problems in viewing and editing Hindi text correctly. Mozilla Firefox requires support for complex text layout, otherwise it might display the Hindi text incorrectly. The support for complex text layout is usually turned off by default, but this Wikipedia article gives a detailed explanation on how to turn it on in various operating systems. 6. How do I use the editing options better? For a complete mapping of which Roman characters will be converted into which Devanāgarī characters, please see this article. Note that this is a static mapping that only applies in Edit mode. When you are simply typing as usual, a more complex algorithm is used to determine the correct characters to display based on the sound of each overall word. 7. Will transliteration work even without internet connectivity? Transliteration requires a live internet connection, as all the transliteration is done on Google's servers and sent back to your browser while you continue typing. If you see a message saying that the transliteration service is unavailable, check your internet connection. 8. Which other languages do you support? Transliteration is available for the Hindi language in Blogger and Orkut. It is now available in Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, and Malayalam, on the Google Indic Transliteration page and the iGoogle gadget. 9. Is transliteration available in other Google services? Yes. Transliteration is available
in the following services:
10. I have suggestions for product improvements. How do I let you know? To share your thoughts with us, please post them to the discussion group. Google Transliteration is part of Google India Labs, so we're still in the early stages of development. Your feedback is important and will help us improve the product. You can send your comments to indialabs+indictransliteration@google.com. |
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