Indic Computing means "computing in

Indic Indic may refer to: * Indic languages (disambiguation) * Various scripts: ** Brahmic scripts, a family of scripts used to write Indian and other Asian languages ** Kharosthi (extinct) * Indian numerals * Indian religions, also known as the Dharm ...

", i.e., Indian Scripts and Languages. It involves developing

software Software is a set of computer programs and associated documentation and data. This is in contrast to hardware, from which the system is built and which actually performs the work. At the lowest programming level, executable code consists ...

in Indic Scripts/languages,

Input method An input method (or input method editor, commonly abbreviated IME) is an operating system component or program that enables users to generate characters not natively available on their input devices by using sequences of characters (or mouse o ...

Localization Localization or localisation may refer to: Biology * Localization of function, locating psychological functions in the brain or nervous system; see Linguistic intelligence * Localization of sensation, ability to tell what part of the body is a ...

of computer applications,

web development Web development is the work involved in developing a website for the Internet (World Wide Web) or an intranet (a private network). Web development can range from developing a simple single static page of plain text to complex web applications ...

Database Management In computing, a database is an organized collection of data stored and accessed electronically. Small databases can be stored on a file system, while large databases are hosted on computer clusters or cloud storage. The design of databases span ...

Spell checkers In software, a spell checker (or spelling checker or spell check) is a software feature that checks for misspellings in a text. Spell-checking features are often embedded in software or services, such as a word processor, email client, electronic di ...

Speech to Text Speech recognition is an interdisciplinary subfield of computer science and computational linguistics that develops methodologies and technologies that enable the recognition and translation of spoken language into text by computers with the mai ...

and

Text to Speech Speech synthesis is the artificial production of human speech. A computer system used for this purpose is called a speech synthesizer, and can be implemented in software or hardware products. A text-to-speech (TTS) system converts normal languag ...

applications and OCR in Indian languages. Most of the widely use
Indic
scripts are encoded in

Unicode Unicode, formally The Unicode Standard,The formal version reference is is an information technology Technical standard, standard for the consistent character encoding, encoding, representation, and handling of Character (computing), text expre ...

for working on Computers and Internet. As of version 10.0,

Bengali Bengali or Bengalee, or Bengalese may refer to: *something of, from, or related to Bengal, a large region in South Asia * Bengalis, an ethnic and linguistic group of the region * Bengali language, the language they speak ** Bengali alphabet, the w ...

Devanagari Devanagari ( ; , , Sanskrit pronunciation: ), also called Nagari (),Kathleen Kuiper (2010), The Culture of India, New York: The Rosen Publishing Group, , page 83 is a left-to-right abugida (a type of segmental Writing systems#Segmental syste ...

Gujarati Gujarati may refer to: * something of, from, or related to Gujarat, a state of India * Gujarati people, the major ethnic group of Gujarat * Gujarati language, the Indo-Aryan language spoken by them * Gujarati languages, the Western Indo-Aryan sub- ...

Gurmukhi Gurmukhī ( pa, ਗੁਰਮੁਖੀ, , Shahmukhi: ) is an abugida developed from the Laṇḍā scripts, standardized and used by the second Sikh guru, Guru Angad (1504–1552). It is used by Punjabi Sikhs to write the language, commonly r ...

Kannada Kannada (; ಕನ್ನಡ, ), originally romanised Canarese, is a Dravidian language spoken predominantly by the people of Karnataka in southwestern India, with minorities in all neighbouring states. It has around 47 million native s ...

, Limbu,

Malayalam Malayalam (; , ) is a Dravidian language spoken in the Indian state of Kerala and the union territories of Lakshadweep and Puducherry (Mahé district) by the Malayali people. It is one of 22 scheduled languages of India. Malayalam was des ...

, Masaram Gondi, Newari,

Ol Chiki The Ol Chiki () script, also known as Ol Chemetʼ (Santali: ''ol'' 'writing', ''chemet'' 'learning'), Ol Ciki, Ol, and sometimes as the Santali alphabet invented by Pandit Raghunath Murmu in the year 1925, is the official writing system for San ...

, Oriya, Sinhala,

Tamil Tamil may refer to: * Tamils, an ethnic group native to India and some other parts of Asia **Sri Lankan Tamils, Tamil people native to Sri Lanka also called ilankai tamils **Tamil Malaysians, Tamil people native to Malaysia * Tamil language, nativ ...

and

Telugu Telugu may refer to: * Telugu language, a major Dravidian language of India *Telugu people, an ethno-linguistic group of India * Telugu script, used to write the Telugu language ** Telugu (Unicode block), a block of Telugu characters in Unicode S ...

scripts are encoded and supported. Historically used writing systems like

Arwi Arwi or ArabuTamil (Arabic: , ; ta, அரபுத்தமிழ் ) is an Arabic influenced dialect of the Tamil language, Tamil language written with an Arabic Extended-A, extension of the Arabic alphabet, with extensive Lexicon, lexical a ...

, Unicode 8.0
/ref>

Ahom alphabet The Ahom script or Tai Ahom Script, is an abugida that is used to write the Ahom language, a dormant Tai language undergoing revival spoken by the Ahom people till the late 18th-century, who established the Ahom kingdom and ruled the eastern p ...

, Grantha,Unicode 7.0
/ref> Khudabadi,

Mahajani Mahajani is a Laṇḍā mercantile script that was historically used in northern India for writing accounts and financial records in Marwari, Hindi and Punjabi. It is a Brahmic script and is written left-to-right. Mahajani refers to the Hin ...

Modi alphabet Modi ( mr, मोडी, , ; also Mudiya) is a script used to write the Marathi language, which is the primary language spoken in the state of Maharashtra, India. There are multiple theories concerning its origin. The Modi script was used alongs ...

Siddham script Siddham may refer to: *Siddhaṃ script (also '), also known in its later evolved form as Siddhamātṛkā, is a medieval Brahmic abugida, derived from the Gupta script and ancestral to the Nāgarī, Assamese, Bengali, Tirhuta, Odia and ...

, Syloti Nagri,

Tirhuta The Tirhuta or Maithili script is the primary historical script for the Maithili language, as well as one of the historical scripts for Sanskrit. It is believed to have originated in the 10th century CE. It is very similar to Bengali–Assam ...

are also included. Some more Indic scripts are in development and will be included in unicode, for instance

Tulu Script Tulu () in Kannada script, ml, ത‍ുള‍ു ഭാഷെ in Malayalam script. ''bhāṣe'', , ''bhāśe'', and ''bāśe'' are alternative spellings for the Tulu word ''bāse'' in the Kannada script. The correct spelling for the word ...

. A lot of Indic Computing projects are going on. They involve some government sector companies, some volunteer groups and individual people.

Government sector

Indian Union Government made it mandatory for Mobile phone companies whose handsets manufactured, stored, sold and distributed in India to have support for reading of text in all 22 languages. This move has seen rise in use of Indian languages by millions of users.Centre’s push for regional language support paying off – The Hindu Business Line
/ref>

TDIL

The Department of Electronics and Information Technology, India initiated the

TDIL The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) is an executive agency of the Government of India, Union Government of the India, Republic of India. It was carved out of the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (I ...

(Technology Development for Indian Languages) with the objective of developing Information Processing Tools and Techniques to facilitate human-machine interaction without language barrier; creating and accessing multilingual knowledge resources; and integrating them to develop innovative user products and services. In 2005, it started distributing language software tools developed by Government/Academic/Private companies in the form of CD for non commercial use. Some of the outcome of TDIL program deployed on Indian Language Technology Proliferation & Deployment Centre. This Centre disseminate all the linguistic resources, tools & applications which have been developed under TDIL funding. This programme took to exponential expansion under the leadership of Dr. Swaran Lata who also created international foot-print of the programme. She has now retired.

C-DAC

C-DAC The Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC) is an Government of India, Indian autonomous scientific society, operating under the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology. History CDAC was created in November 1987, init ...

is an

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

based government software company which is involved in developing language related software. It is best known for developing

InScript Keyboard InScript (short for Indic Script) is the decreed standard keyboard layout for Indian scripts using a standard 104- or 105-key layout. This keyboard layout was standardised by the Government of India for inputting text in languages of India writ ...

, the standard keyboard for Indian languages. It has also developed lot of Indic language solutions including Word Processors, typing tools, text to speech software, OCR in Indian languages etc.

BharateeyaOO.org

The work developed out of CDAC, Bangalore (earlier known as NCST, Bangalore) became BharateeyaOO. OpenOffice 2.1 had support for over 10 Indian languages.

BOSS

BOSS is developed by National Resource Centre for free/open source software, an initiative of DIT. Its activities are coordinated by C-DAC Chennai and Anna University KBC Research Center. Support Centres are established at several cities in India to provide support to Users.

NGO and Volunteer groups

Indlinux

Indlinux organisation helped organise the individual volunteers working on different indic language versions of Linux and its applications.

Sarovar

Sarovar.org is

's first portal to host projects under Free/Open source licenses. It is located in

Trivandrum Thiruvananthapuram (; ), also known by its former name Trivandrum (), is the capital of the Indian state of Kerala. It is the most populous city in Kerala with a population of 957,730 as of 2011. The encompassing urban agglomeration populati ...

and hosted at Asianet data center. Sarovar.org is customised, installed and maintained by Linuxense as part of their community services and sponsored by River Valley Technologies. Sarovar.org is built on Debian Etch and GForge and runs off METTLE.

Pinaak

Pinaak is a non-government charitable society devoted to Indic language computing. It works for software localization, developing language software, localizing open source software, enriching online encyclopedias etc. In addition to this Pinaak works for educating people about computing, ethical use of Internet and use of Indian languages on Internet.

Ankur Group

Ankur Group is working toward supporting Bengali language (

) on

Linux Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, which ...

operating system including localized Bengali GUI,

Live CD A live CD (also live DVD, live disc, or live operating system) is a complete bootable computer installation including operating system which runs directly from a CD-ROM or similar storage device into a computer's memory, rather than loading fro ...

, English-to-Bengali translator, Bengali OCR and Bengali Dictionary etc.

BhashaIndia

SMC

SMC is a free software group, working to bridge the language divide in Kerala in the technology front and is today the biggest language computing community in India. Helping Malayalam Take the Digital Leap – The New Indian Express
/ref>

Input methods

Full size keyboards

With the advent of

inputting Indic text on computer has become very easy. A number of methods exist for this purpose, but the main ones are:-

InScript

Inscript InScript (short for Indic Script) is the decreed standard keyboard layout for Indian scripts using a standard 104- or 105-key layout. This keyboard layout was standardised by the Government of India for inputting text in languages of India writ ...

is the standard keyboard for Indian languages. Developed by

and standardized by Government of India. Nowadays it comes inbuilt in all major operating systems including

Microsoft Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...

(2000, XP, Vista, 7),

and

Macintosh The Mac (known as Macintosh until 1999) is a family of personal computers designed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple Inc. Macs are known for their ease of use and minimalist designs, and are popular among students, creative professionals, and ...

Phonetic transliteration

This is a typing method in which, for instance, the user types text in an Indian language using

Roman Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *''Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a letter ...

characters and it is phonetically converted to equivalent text in Indian script in real time. This type of conversion is done by phonetic text editors, word processors and software plugins. Building up on the idea, one can use phonetic IME tools that allow

text to be input in any application. Some examples of phonetic transliterators are Xlit,

Google Indic Transliteration Google IME, also known as Google Input Tools, is a set of input method editors by Google for 22 languages, including Amharic, Arabic language, Arabic, Bengali language, Bengali, Chinese language, Chinese, Greek language, Greek, Gujarati language, ...

, BarahaIME,

Indic IME Indic may refer to: * Indic languages (disambiguation) * Various scripts: ** Brahmic scripts, a family of scripts used to write Indian and other Asian languages ** Kharosthi (extinct) * Indian numerals * Indian religions, also known as the Dharm ...

, Rupantar, SMC's Indic Keyboard and

Microsoft Indic Language Input Tool Microsoft Indic Language Input Tool is a typing tool (Input Method Editor) for languages written in Indic scripts. It is a virtual keyboard which allows to type Indic text directly in any application without the hassle of copying and pasting. It is ...

. SMC's Indic Keyboard has support for as many as 23 languages whereas Google Indic Keyboard only supports 11 Indian languages. They can be broadly classified as: * Fixed transliteration scheme based tools – They work using a fixed transliteration scheme to convert text. Some examples are

, Rupantar and BarahaIME. * Intelligent/Learning based transliteration tools – They compare the word with a dictionary and then convert it to the equivalent words in the target language. Some of the popular ones are

, Xlit,

and QuillPad.

Remington (typewriter)

This layout was developed when computers had not been invented or deployed with Indic languages, and typewriters were the only means to type text in Indic scripts. Since typewriters were mechanical and could not include a script processor engine, each character had to be placed on the keyboard separately, which resulted in a very complex and difficult to learn keyboard layout. With the advent of

, the Remington layout was added to various typing tools for sake of backward compatibility, so that old typists did not have to learn a new keyboard layout. Nowadays this layout is only used by old typists who are used to this layout due to several years of usage. One tool to include Remington layout is

. A font that is based on the Remington keyboard layout is

Kruti Dev Kruti Dev (Devanagari: कृतिदेव) is Devanagari typeface and non-Unicode clip font typeface which uses the keyboard layout of Remington's typewriters. In north Indian states many public service commissions conduct their clerk ...

. Another online tool that very closely supports the old Remington keyboard layout using Kruti Dev is the Remington Typing tool.

Braille

IBus Sharada Braille, which supports seven Indian languages was developed by SMC.

Mobile phones with Numeric keyboards

Mobile/Hand/cell phone basic models have 12 keys like the plain old telephone keypad. Each key is mapped to 3 or 4 English letters to facilitate data entry in English. For inputting Indian languages with this kind of keypad, there are two ways to do so. First is the Multi-tap Method and second uses visual help from the screen like Panini Keypad. The primary usage is

SMS Short Message/Messaging Service, commonly abbreviated as SMS, is a text messaging service component of most telephone, Internet and mobile device systems. It uses standardized communication protocols that let mobile devices exchange short text ...

. 140 characters size used for English/Roman languages can be used to accommodate only about 70 language characters when Unicode Proprietary compression is used some times to increase the size of single message for Complex script languages like Hindi. A research study of the available methods and recommendations of proposed standard was released by Broadband Wireless Consortium of India (BWCI).

Transliteration/Phonetic methods

English is used to type in Indian languages. QuillPad IndiSMS

Native methods

In native methods, the letters of the language are displayed on the screen corresponding to the numeral keys based on the probabilities of those letters for that language. Additional letters can be accessed by using a special key. When a word is partially typed, options are presented from which the user can make a selection.

Smart phones with Qwerty keyboards

Most smart phones have about 35 keys catering primarily to English language. Numerals and some symbols are accessed with a special key called Alt. Indic input methods are yet to evolve for these types of phones, as support of

for rendering is not widely available.

For Smart Phones with Soft/Virtual keyboards

Inscript is being adopted for smart phone usage. For Android phones which can render Indic languages, Swalekh Multilingual Keypad Multiling Keyboard app are available.

Gboard Gboard is a virtual keyboard app developed by Google for Android and iOS devices. It was first released on iOS in May 2016, followed by a release on Android in December 2016, debuting as a major update to the already-established Google Keyboard ...

offers support for several Indian languages.

Localization

Localization means translating software, operating systems, websites etc. various applications in Indian language. Various volunteers groups are working in this direction.

Mandrake Tamil Version

A notable example is the Tamil version of Mandrake linux(defunct since 2011). Tamil speakers in

Toronto Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the ancho ...

(Canada) released

Mandrake A mandrake is the root of a plant, historically derived either from plants of the genus '' Mandragora'' found in the Mediterranean region, or from other species, such as ''Bryonia alba'', the English mandrake, which have similar properties. The ...

, a Linux software, in coming out with a Tamil version. It can be noted that all the features can be accessed in Tamil. By this, the prerequisite of English knowledge for using computers has been eliminated, for those who know Tamil.

IndLinux

IndLinux is a volunteer group aiming to translate the

operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems schedule tasks for efficient use of the system and may also in ...

into Indian languages. By the efforts of this group, Linux has been localized almost completely in Hindi and other Indian languages.

Nipun

Nipun is an online translation system aimed to translate various application in

Hindi Hindi (Devanāgarī: or , ), or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi (Devanagari: ), is an Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in the Hindi Belt region encompassing parts of northern, central, eastern, and western India. Hindi has been de ...

. It is part of ''Akshargram Network''.

Localising Websites

GoDaddy GoDaddy Inc. is an American publicly traded Internet domain registrar and web hosting company headquartered in Tempe, Arizona, and incorporated in Delaware. , GoDaddy has more than 21 million customers and over 6,600 employees worldwide. The co ...

has localised its website in

Marathi Marathi may refer to: *Marathi people, an Indo-Aryan ethnolinguistic group of Maharashtra, India *Marathi language, the Indo-Aryan language spoken by the Marathi people *Palaiosouda, also known as Marathi, a small island in Greece See also * * ...

and

and also noted that 40% of the call volume for IVR is in Indian Languages.

Indic blogging

Indic blogging refers to blogging in Indic languages. Various efforts have been done to promote blogging in Indian languages.

Social Networks

Some Social networks are started in Indian languages.

Programming

Indic programming languages

* BangaBhasha - Programming in Bangla * Programing using Hindi language *

Ezhil Ezhilmaaran known as Ezhil is an Indian film director who works in the Tamil film industry. He has won 2 Tamil Nadu state awards. He made his directorial debut with the 1999 romantic film ''Thulladha Manamum Thullum'' starring Vijay and Si ...

, a programming language in Tamil

Frameworks

Gherkin A pickled cucumber (commonly known as a pickle in the United States and Canada and a gherkin in Britain, Ireland, South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand) is a usually small or miniature cucumber that has been pickled in a brine, vinegar, or ...

, a popular

Domain-specific language A domain-specific language (DSL) is a computer language specialized to a particular application domain. This is in contrast to a general-purpose language (GPL), which is broadly applicable across domains. There are a wide variety of DSLs, ranging f ...

has support for Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Punjabi, Tamil, Telugu and Urdu

Libraries

Natural Language processing in Indian languages is on rise. There are several libraries such as iNLTK, StanfordNLP are available.

Translation

Google offers improved translation feature for Hindi, Bengali, Marathi, Tamil, Telugu, Gujarati, Punjabi, Malayalam and Kannada, Google Translate for 9 Indian languages, 11 more get keyboard support – Live Mint
/ref> with offline support as well.
/ref> Microsoft also offers translation for some of these languages.

Software

Indic Language Stack

In a symposium jointly organized by

FICCI The Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce & Industry (FICCI) is a non-governmental trade association and advocacy group based in India. History Established in 1927, on the advice of Mahatma Gandhi by Indian businessman G.D. Birla an ...

and

, Mr. Ajay Prakash Sawhney, Secretary, Ministry of Electronics and IT, Government of India said that India Language Stack can help overcome the barriers of communication.

Spell Checkers

Transliteration tools

Transliteration tools allow users to read a text in a different script. As of now
Aksharamukha
is the tool that allows most Indian scripts. Google also offers Indic Transliteration. Text from any of these scripts can be converted to any other scripts and vice versa. Whereas Google and Microsoft allow transliteration from Latin letters to Indic scripts.

Text-to-Speech

Carnegie Mellon University Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) is a private research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. One of its predecessors was established in 1900 by Andrew Carnegie as the Carnegie Technical Schools; it became the Carnegie Institute of Technology ...

, in collaboration with the Hear2Read project, has developed a text-to-speech (TTS) software that helps the visually impaired listen to text in native Indian languages. Currently,

is being offered and, releases in Hindi, Bengali, Gujarati, Marathi, Kannada, Punjabi and Telugu are expected over the remainder of 2016.

Speech-to-Text

Voice Recognition

Apple Inc. Apple Inc. is an American multinational technology company headquartered in Cupertino, California, United States. Apple is the largest technology company by revenue (totaling in 2021) and, as of June 2022, is the world's biggest company ...

added support for major Indian languages in

Siri Siri ( ) is a virtual assistant that is part of Apple Inc.'s iOS, iPadOS, watchOS, macOS, tvOS, and audioOS operating systems. It uses voice queries, gesture based control, focus-tracking and a natural-language user interface to answer questio ...

. Amazon's Alexa has support for Hindi and recognises major Indian languages partially.

Google Assistant Google Assistant is a virtual assistant software application developed by Google that is primarily available on mobile and home automation devices. Based on artificial intelligence, Google Assistant can engage in two-way conversations, unlike t ...

also has support for major Indian languages.

Internationalized Domain Names

Operating Systems

Indus OS Indus OS is an Indian smartphone application and content discovery platform based on Android, with the aim to brings the users, developers and smartphone brands on a single platform and to create an Indian smartphone ecosystem. The platform is ...

Virtual Assistants

AI based Virtual Assistants

provides support to various Indian languages.

Usage and Growth

According to

and

languages accounted for 61% of India's internet traffic. GoDaddy launches services in Hindi, Marathi and Tamil – EconomicTimes.com
/ref> Less than 1% of online content is in Indian languages. The newly created top apps have support for multiple Indian languages and/or promote Indian language content. 61% of the Indian users of

WhatsApp WhatsApp (also called WhatsApp Messenger) is an internationally available freeware, cross-platform, centralized instant messaging (IM) and voice-over-IP (VoIP) service owned by American company Meta Platforms (formerly Facebook). It allows us ...

primarily use their native languages to communicate with it. A recent study revealed that adoption of Internet is highest among local languages such as Tamil, Hindi, Kannada, Bengali, Marathi, Telugu, Gujarati and Malayalam. It estimates that Marathi, Bengali, Tamil, and Telugu will form 30% of the total local-language user base in the country. Currently, Tamil at 42% has the highest Internet adoption levels, followed by Hindi at 39% and Kannada at 37%.No English Only Vinglish: 90% New Internet Users Coming Online In India Are Non-English Speakers
/ref> Intex also reported that 87% of its regional language usage came from Hindi, Bengali, Tamil, Gujarati and Marathi speakers.

Lava mobiles Lava is molten or partially molten rock (magma) that has been expelled from the interior of a terrestrial planet (such as Earth) or a moon onto its surface. Lava may be erupted at a volcano or through a fracture in the crust, on land or und ...

reported that Tamil and Malayalam are the most popular on their phones, more than even Hindi.

References

{{reflist , 30em , refs = {{cite web, url=http://www.bengalinux.org/ , title=Archive of Ankur Home , publisher=Ankur group, Bengalinux.org group , accessdate=26 December 2015 , url-status=dead , archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20050529081357/http://www.bengalinux.org/ , archivedate=29 May 2005