Maran seeks availability of open source language software

Even as Dayanidhi Maran, Minister for IT, urged Microsoft to develop MS office for Indian languages, he hinted that the availability of language software should be through open source given the large number of languages in the country.

"Given the large number of languages in the country, the availability of open source form for language technology is necessary," he said while speaking at the International conference on Speech and Language Systems for Human Communication organised by the IT ministry in conjunction with the Center for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC) and the Committee for the Coordination and Standardization of Speech database and Assessment Techniques (COCOSDA).

Steve Ballmer, CEO, Microsoft had expressed his willingness to develop Indian language versions of Microsoft office, during his visit to the capital yesterday.

"Public-private sector partnerships convert the existing prototype systems into commercial products for wider dissemination and use," said Maran. The minister had urged the CEO to leverage facilities at C-DAC for various collaborations with the industry.

He added that NIC should also play a major role in integrating language computing solutions in practical usage such as in e-governance in conjunction with the players.

The technology calls for the conversion of the speech waveform to machine readable text, and conversion of one language another and generation of speech from the converted text. This covers translation systems, language resources, computing environments among others.

The government has launched a Program for technology Development for Indian languages in developing and deploying multilingual and Natural Language Processing (NAP) based applications, products and technologies.