THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The state government’s ambitious effort to promote Malayalam has come as boon for the Centre for Development of Imaging Technology (C-DIT), driving them to develop a translation software for Malayalam.
Currently, the research is being done to develop a grammar check programme to translate English text to grammatically correct Malayalam. Since the government has made Malayalam mandatory in several offices as the language of correspondence, this application might see wide use.
“As a first step, we have developed a digital dictionary. Machine translation is possible only with the help of a grammar check software and dictionary,” said V Govindaru, head of Research & Development Division, C-Dit. C-Dit along with Kerala State IT Mission launched a web application of Malayalam dictionary in 2009. It became an instant hit among Non-Resident Keralites. “Within a month we got 1.3 lakh hits from countries such as the United States of America and Germany. It clearly shows the demand for an authentic online dictionary,” said Govindaru.
Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan released last week a mobile version of the app - Bhashamithram. It contains Malayalam-English dictionary, English-Malayalam dictionary and a Malayalam thesaurus. The app has over 10,000 downloads from Google Playstore till now. Recently, the state government had announced major initiatives to promote Malayalam. It has brought out an ordinance making Malayalam compulsory at school level.