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Capitalization Based Hinting

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Quick Summary

Apart from easy-to-use free form transliteration, Microsoft Indic Language Input Tool accommodates experienced users who wish to be more specific by using capital letters. We also expect that with time, as new users get more proficient, they will find use for this feature, as it will help them more accurately transliterate with minimal spelling revisions.

In short, it allows users to enter a capital letter to specify a preference for a long vowel (e.g. bA for बा in Hindi or kE for கே in Tamil) or a hard consonant (e.g. De for डे in Hindi or Li for ளி in Tamil). For a guide on how to use this feature, refer to the links below for each language.

Bengali  Hindi  Kannada  Malayalam  Tamil  Telugu

Each link points to the pertinent questions in our FAQs section. Questions 5 through 9 go over the details of how to use capital letters with Microsoft Indic Language Input Tool.

The Whole Story

One of the most significant challenges we faced while developing the Microsoft Indic Language Input Tool was designing it to be useful for as many different kinds of users as possible.

Computing with and digitally publishing in Indian Languages has a long history. However, the users are, in general, made up of a niche of early adopters/advanced users and a rapidly growing group of new users.

The advanced users have been working with Indian Languages for several years - as professional publishers, writers and linguists, or just language enthusiasts. They have seen the days when the only way to enter Indic text was to learn and use a keyboard layout or a fixed transliteration scheme. Having learnt those layouts and schemes and gotten used to the speed and accuracy, they can settle for nothing less.

On the other hand, new users have only just started entering Indian language text into computers. To learn a keyboard layout or transliteration scheme could be a big barrier for them. Free form transliteration holds instant appeal for the new casual users because of the ability to spell out words naturally in English. By using free-form transliteration, we clearly made the product usable by new users. Yet, we wanted to help more experienced users to get to their word choices easily as well.

Enter capitalization based hinting.

The majority of the transliteration schemes in existence use capital letters to distinguish long vowels from short vowels and hard consonants from soft consonants. In classic free-form transliteration, this distinction is lost. For this reason, apart from free-form transliteration, Microsoft Indic Language Input Tool also allows users to be more specific by using capital letters. We also expect that with time, as new users get more proficient, they will find use for this feature, as it will help them more accurately transliterate with minimal spelling revisions.

In short, it allows users to enter a capital letter to specify a
preference for a long vowel (e.g. bA for बा in Hindi or kE for கே in
Tamil) or a hard consonant (e.g. De for डे in Hindi or Li for ளி in
Tamil). For a guide on how to use this feature, refer to the links
below for each language.

Bengali  Hindi  Kannada  Malayalam  Tamil  Telugu

Each link points to the pertinent questions in our FAQs section. Questions 5 through 9 go over the details of how to use capital letters with Microsoft Indic Language Input Tool.

We hope you find this feature useful. As always, we encourage you to leave comments below to let us know what you think.

Thanks!

Rahul.

Comments

  • Anonymous
    December 20, 2009
    The visual keyboard is too small, text size can't be changed, there's is too much "glass" that it distracts and there are no options for it like selecting a different font.

  • Anonymous
    December 20, 2009
    Hi Tuxplorer, Thanks for your feedback. We shall work on addressing this in a future release. Rahul (Microsoft Indic Language Input Tool Team)

  • Anonymous
    December 20, 2009
    Can you please address the issue with Bengali ৎ (khondo ta) as in চিৎকার/বৃহৎ. And it will be easier if you transliterated full-stop (.) into Bengali (।)

  • Anonymous
    December 20, 2009
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    December 25, 2009
    This is an amazing tool, I love it! Great job!

  • Anonymous
    January 08, 2010
    Tool looks excellent , just used it the demo for few words and its working , its great.

  • Anonymous
    January 18, 2010
    Hi, This is good. One comment on the FAQ: What about capital letters at the beginning of a word? Microsoft ILIT ignores a capital letter if it is the first letter of the word. This is because Microsoft ILIT cannot differentiate a hint from a capital letter used for a proper noun or the first word of a sentence. I don't think any Indic language requires capitalisation of first letter of first word of a sentence. (We don't have upper or lower case of letters in the first place!) If you've therefore implemented for capitalisation of such a letter, it's meaningless and should therefore be done away with. Although it's understandable about proper nounce for sure!

  • Anonymous
    January 18, 2010
    Hi Mayuresh, You're right, Indic languages have no concept of case. However, we have observed that several users typing in English are so conditioned to actually type the first word of a sentence or a proper noun using an initial capital letter that they carry the habit over even when transliterating Indic language words. We chose this compromise to prevent these false positives from forcing a particular vowel or consonant. Thanks. Rahul (Microsoft Indic Language Input Tool team)

  • Anonymous
    January 23, 2010
    Reporting 2 hindi typos in the FAQ section about capitalization based hinting (errors marked with a ): (1) "For example, some users may prefer to type "bhArat" for "भारत", to disambiguate it from "भारत", which is also spelt "bharat". (2)While typing "bhArat" gives only "भारत", typing "bharat" will return both "भारत" and "भारत"*

  • Anonymous
    January 26, 2010
    The comment has been removed