Bharati Script

• 29 Sep 2020

Why in News

Bharati script is designed to be a common script that can express all the major Indian languages.

• Script refers to a set of letters used for writing a particular language. E.g. Devanagari, Roman, etc.

Key Points

• Developed By: Srinivasa Chakravathy’s team at IIT Madras.
• Features:
  
  • Bharati is a simple and unified script which can be used to write most major Indian languages.
  • It is designed using simplest shapes, often borrowing simple characters from various Indian languages/scripts and English.
  • Scripts supported are: Hindi/Marathi (Devanagari), Tamil, Telugu, Gujarati, Punjabi (Gurmukhi), Bengali, Oriya, Kannada and Malayalam.
• Use of Technology:
  
  • Optical Character Recognition: The Team has developed a method for reading documents in Bharati script using a multi-lingual Optical Character Recognition (OCR) scheme.
    
    • OCR is a system that provides a full alphanumeric recognition of printed or handwritten characters at electronic speed by simply scanning the form.
  • Finger-spelling Method: It can be used to generate a sign language for hearing-impaired persons.
  • Related Applications/Tools: Bharati Handwriting Keyboard and Bharati Transliterator.
    
    • Transliteration changes the letters from one alphabet or language into the corresponding, similar-sounding characters of another alphabet.
    • It is different from translation which allows words in one language to be understood by those who speak another language. Essentially, translation of a foreign word involves interpreting its meaning.
    • Transliteration, on the other hand, makes a language a little more accessible to people who are unfamiliar with that language’s alphabet. Transliteration focuses more on pronunciation than meaning, which is especially useful when discussing foreign people, places, and cultures.
• Significance:
  
  • It is in line with 'One Nation, One Script'.
  • The Roman script is used as a common script for many European languages (English, French, German, Italian etc.), which facilitates communication across nations that speak and write those languages. Likewise, a common (Bharati) script for the entire country is hoped to bring down many communication barriers in India.
  • It can help the next generation of Indians to easily read in Indian languages.
  • It is an ideal script for languages like Konkani or Tulu that don’t have their own script.
  • It can serve as a writing system for the innumerable tribal languages of India, and languages of the NorthEast.
  • It can act as a link script for migrant Indians who move out of their native state for work
  • It can connect the millions of Non Resident Indian (NRI) children back to Indian literature.
  • It can lead to a new system of Braille (for blind persons) for Indian languages and even a fingerspelling system for the hearing-impaired.
  • It can shorten the duration of adult literacy programs from 6 months to a few weeks, as the script is easy to learn.

Source: TH