Navigating Indic fonts and software: A translator's advice
Posted by Remya Padmadas on June 28, 2016Kumarika Mohanty is an Electrical Engineer and an Infosys staffer. She loves writing about causes that are close to her heart. She is very passionate about her mother tongue Odia and believes in making good use of Social Media channels to do her bit in propagating the use of Odia by the people who speak the language.
Here, she writes about Indic language software and tools, and how they have helped her work as a translator. You can read this post in Odia, here.
The first time I saw Odia fonts typed on a computer screen was in the late 90's. My dad had ordered Shree Lipi Oriya software. Though he got accustomed to the English key equivalents for Odia letters, a key issue that he faced with this software was its portability. The entire typed text (at times the entire volume of a book) was printed and then sent to type setters who used to retype the entire content, if the same software was not available with them. Though, tedious in this aspect, he still uses this software and has gotten it upgraded over the years.
Kumarika's Reccomendations
Few years back, I came across Indic fonts in Unicode. A boon, I must add, for people who want to write in Indian languages. I instantly installed 'Type Oriya' app on my Windows Phone. I am sure, it is available for iOS & Android too. This app lets me tweet in Unicode Odia and I have been able to connect to numerous Odias across the globe, like @nidhi_budha, @wearebbsr, @BBSRBuzz, @akala_kushmanda to name a few. I have also come across these blogs in Odia/ about Odia that I thoroughly enjoy - https://akalakushmaanda.
When I got associated with Pratham Books last year, I came across couple of more online editors for Odia. I am comfortable with two online editors- Branah and Tamilcube. I have to use two editors as one overcomes the shortcomings of the other. One striking issue is, due to a major use of 'juktakhyaras' (letters made from various combinations of vowels and consonants). While Branah allows 'juktakhyaras' that are not valid/used in Odia, Tamilcube does not let me create a couple of valid 'juktakhyaras'!
While I was interacting with Team StoryWeaver, regarding this blog, they mentioned Google Input Tools. I gave it a try and I find it to be very helpful. The interface is quite user friendly, in case of Google and it also eliminates the possibility of making spelling mistakes. I would like to thank StoryWeaver for introducing this to me.
Last month, I was involved in translation of a particular Wikipedia document. Here, I got to know of an online translation tool - MediaWiki. Though I am yet to use it, I am aware that it can translate smaller chunks of texts from a source language to target language. Such a tool would be very useful to translators, I am sure.
This webpage has a good collection of online editors and softwares available -http://odia.odisha.gov.in/it-
You can read some of Kumarika's translations to Odia on StoryWeaver here and you can follow her on Twitter @kumariika
Do you have a favourite software on online tool for translation? Tweet us @pbstoryweaver or write to us [email protected] and tell us what it is!
Be the first to comment.The Konkani Struggle and its story
Posted by Remya Padmadas on May 30, 2016
Ms. Ratnamala Divkar of the Konkani Bhasha Mandal writes in...
On this day, 29 years ago, Goa was declared a state. This was the culmination of a long struggle of the Goans - a struggle to establish identity to reclaim the origins of expression and belonging. The struggle of Konkani as the official language of its land has been intrinsically intertwined with this journey. And in a lot of ways, the struggle to populate our expressions in Konkani is still on..
As part of our Konkan journey, we were introduced to StoryWeaver, Pratham Books and its efforts to enrich children’s literature with stories across many, many languages. It was a great pleasure collaborating with them for their venture in Konkani. The opportunity came to us at the Konkani Bhasha Mandal at the right time, as we had been struggling to find ways in which we could contribute to children's literature in our language, Konkani. It was a great experience interacting with like-minded people such as the StoryWeaver team.
Konkani unfortunately has suffered greatly since pre-independence and the language has not received the patronage it deserves. Konkani was not been recognised by many as an independent language but was considered a dialect of Marathi for too long. Konkani language enthusiasts and writers have had to spend much of their resources on the fight to get recognition for Konkani as a language, thus, diverting their energy from contributing to the development of the language. Finally after long drawn struggle, Konkani was included in the eighth schedule of our Constitution in 1992. There is much more to express, a struggle that still continues till today. Our Leader Dnyanpeeth Awardee Shri Ravindra Kelekar always used to say that we are fighters first and then writers.
Children's literature in Konkani was a casualty of this struggle. It’s something we have been keenly aware of and we are consciously trying our best to contribute to this area. While doing so we know that children's literature is not an easy job.
Plus, like any other state the issue of medium of instruction did surface in Goa and we at Konkani Bhasha Mandal( KBM) realised that we have to provide supporting material in education besides academics. We have made an attempt to meet the expertise in this field. We conducted workshops, had interactive sessions, produced material required in education. We are still working on this mission with our committed and passionate group of writers. There is much more to be done.
The books* created by StoryWeaver cover a wide range of topics, catering to children with all types of interests. The illustrations are lively, very attractive and makes the stories more interesting.
I’d like to take this opportunity to thank you for allowing us translate these beautiful stories to Konkani and reach out to our children. We look forward to working with you on original stories in Konkani.
Cheers to that!
*The books mentioned were created under a grant from Oracle India.
On Konkan Shores
Posted by Amna Singh on May 09, 2016Last year, during the launch of StoryWeaver, we reached out to Guru Baliga at the World Konkani Centre who helped us get Konkani (in Devanagiri script) on to the platform. A few weeks later, we had another Konkani story on thanks to Sujata Noronha (who runs Bookworm, Goa) and her friend Jose Salvador Fernandes. This time, the script was Roman.
To us, this was an exciting and hopeful entry into the world of Konkani.
More recently, through a grant from The Oracle Giving Initiative we have been able to create 20 STEM titles and make them available in 10 languages under the CC-BY 4.0 license.
The 20 stories woven from the Oracle Grant project, they have feet. Feet that are meant to travel the length and breadth of this country and beyond. That’s the dream. That’s our dream for each and every tale that has ever been born.
The endeavour to translate these stories in 9 other languages found us connecting with storytellers pan India. We were on the lookout for translators with an inherent understanding of the delicate world of children’s literature. Faced with this mildly daunting task, we turned to the community for support. And they came forward eagerly, to weave these stories with us in many, many languages.
While these stories were being translated and reviewed across languages like Odia, Bengali, Kannada, Marathi…we wanted to hear these stories in Konkani voices too. Finding ourselves at the Konkan shores, we knocked on the doors of our friends at the Konkani Bhasha Mandal (Goa) who responded with enthusiasm and positivity. A couple of mails and some very quick reverts later, our Konkani captain Tanvi Bambolkar hopped on board for our Oracle odyssey. I call her the Konkani Activist. Armed with her energy and the passion of creating more and more stories in a language she strongly feels for, Tanvi and a like-minded Konkani comrade, Hrishikesh Kadam, translated about a dozen odd stories for us.
There's a palpable energy and passion in the Konkani community across age-groups which Tanvi explains: "I think the main reason for it is we feel that there is a lot to be done for Konkani and we cannot waste time. So we try to give as much as possible in whatever ways we can." Perhaps this is how they both managed to carve out time while juggling examinations, paper setting and jobs at AIR on the side.
And no, they didn’t stop at this. Tanvi introduced us to other Konkani Bhasha Mandal gems - Ms. Ratnamala Divkar and Ms. Kiran Budkuley – who not only ensured that they themselves signed up but also helped us with more leads of other Konkan linguists to collaborate with.
Ratna personally spoke to each and every contact on her list, and set the wheels in motion for us. Sunetra Jog lent us her professionalism, Prashanti Talpankar her inimitable child-like enthusiasm; Chetan Acharya his diligence; and Nayana Adarkar’s quiet work ethic saw this dream through. Yogini Acharya, Sandesh Prabhudesai, Rama Murkunde and many more who signed up; we couldn’t have done this without these language stars.
We also had stalwarts like Mr. Ramesh Veluskar (Sahitya Academy Award winner) coming in on this project and helping us raise the bar many notches through his wisdom and clarity.
“The Konkan community in Goa is so small - its not even a district. At home, we hear Konkani. Our children are growing up with Konkani. We don’t have to forget our own language just because we are learning another language.” shared Mr. Veluskar with StoryWeaver. “A mother tongue for any individual is a natural expression, its spirit comes from within. Every other language that one learns as we grow is an acquired understanding of a new language. The most natural quality of one's expression will reflect coherently in one's mother tongue. That is why there is a need to safeguard and replenish it.”
This collaboration is the fusion of the old with the new. The younger lot has worked on most of the story translations and their seniors have come in as reviewers for their work to help iron out the seams.
As the end credits are about to roll on this chapter, we have names of 15 Konkani enthusiasts (and counting) of the Konkani Bhasha Mandal, Goa who have made this work. This group has a cognisance of the diminishing footprints of their mother tongue from the children literature landscape. They talk of trying to salvage the special subset; the children’s language that is lovingly nurtured within every language of the world. The driver is their intuitive understanding of the lacuna that this loss will leave behind in the collective Indian heritage. They are working tirelessly to populate everlasting Konkani contributions in the field of literature, art, philosophy… so that the coming generations do not lose their sense of belonging.
These Konkani stories are a potent mix of zeal tempered with the wisdom of storytelling and the comfort of the language of one’s origin.
Sometimes, we walk miles only to be able to come back home. And what a homecoming this has been.
More power to our generous and enthusiastic translators, our sparkling community.
If you'd like to translate stories on StoryWeaver but can't find your language of choice, write to us at [email protected]
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