Entries Tagged 'ગુજરાતી - Gujarati' ↓

While I was returning from Ahmedabad, Ashok gave a few books to pass on to dad. I had a lot of time on the way back, and picked up Chandrakant Bakshi’s Ego. Here’s something he wrote:

અૌરતની અાંખો િજંદગીભર બુઢ્ઢી થતી નથી…

In English, it translates to:

A woman’s eyes never get older…

So very true!

I’ve been a fan of Chandrakant Bakshi’s writings from school time. And have always enjoyed what he’s written. It was a good time with this photo book yesterday!

Shantanu told me about a new Firefox add-on he has written a while ago. He also discussed it during the Mozilla Indic meet we had. It’s quite nifty, and I thought I should share it with

1. Create an account on Mozilla if you don’t have it. Login to your account.
2. Check Show Sandbox in Profile and Save.
3. Click on Sandbox on upper left.
4. Search for “girgit”. You will get this page.
5. Install!
6. If you want to checkout the source code, follow the “View the source” link on the page.

Try it out!

Divya Bhaskar carried an article about Gujarati Blog world this Sunday. Gujarati Lexicon, Utkarsh, Kartik Mistry and Meena Chheda have all got place in the article, and that makes us proud! The Gujarati blog world is growing, and it’s good to see that newspapers are taking notice of that. Divya Bhaskar is considered a progressive newspaper, and it’s commendable for them to cover such topics. Kartik has blogged more on this, along with a photo of the article.

In another media coverage the same day, Zee Gujarati extensively covered Gujarati Lexicon in an afternoon show. I did not see the show, and would love to get a copy of it, but people who saw, reported it was good coverage.

So two good news on the same day. Incidently April Fool’s Day!

After a long time, we finally started the Utkarsh - GujaratiLexicon blog. Meenaben Chheda and Kartik have posted some good content already and I am sure it will take off well.

Here’s an excerpt from a post about Unicode.

યુનિકોડ એટલે યુનિવર્સલ કોડ. ISO ની જેમ યુનિકોડ એક સ્ટાન્ડર્ડ છે. અને આ સ્ટાન્ડર્ડ છે - કમ્પ્યુટરમાં વપરાતાં ફોન્ટસ માટે. હવે, પહેલાં એવું થતું કે દરેક કંપની અને સ્વત્રંત રીતે સોફ્ટવેર ડેવલપર પોતાની રીતે ફોન્ટસ બનાવતાં અને પોતાની અનુકુળતા મુજબ અંગ્રેજી કી-બોર્ડ પર પોતાની ભાષાનાં અક્ષરોનું મેપિંગ કરતાં. થોડા સમય પછી એવું થયું કે ઘણાં બધા કી-બોર્ડ લેઆઉટ (દા.ત. ટાઇપરાઇટર, ઇન્સ્ક્રિપ્ટ..) અને ફોન્ટસ નીકળ્યા. દરેક ફોન્ટને પોતાનું અલગ કી-બોર્ડ લેઆઉટ હતું. અને છેવટે કમ્પ્યુટર પર ગુજરાતી શીખવા માંગતાં, મારાં તમારાં જેવા સામાન્ય વ્યક્તિઓને બહુ લોચા થવા લાગ્યા.

We do a lot of work in localization - especially for Gujarati language. We met Mahesh Kulkarni of CDAC Pune yesterday. We have met many other people in public sector and government over the last 3 years about Utkarsh and GujaratiLexicon. We have always got many hurdles. People have always spoken a lot about it, appreciated the efforts, acknowledged the need. But then failed to act on their promises.

This was a different experience. A few months ago, CDAC took localized versions of popular applications from us, and actually paid us for them! Yesterday, they showed interest in doing the same for other language resources we have developed - including dictionary and thesaurus.

It’s not just their willingness to pay money for the work we have done that made me happy. It is simply their approach. Mr. Kulkarni was extremely professional, courteous and valued the efforts put in. He has been in this field for more than two decades and as the head of GIST group, he knows  the sweat and emotions associated with building something for one’s mother tongue.

One of his philosophies that inspired me was about commercial aspects of language software. There is no harm in charging money for software, rather it should be done. And when foreign companies come to India for acquiring language technologies, they should be charged fairly for the services - rather than discounting the fees for the benefit of associating with a big name. Because at the end of the day, they are going to sell to fellow Indians!

It was good hearing about his experiences and learning from them. And I really salute the contribution he is making!