| With
the advent of personal computers during 1970’s,
Indian scientists felt dire need for use of Indian
languages in computers. During 1980’s distributed
computer networking paved way towards emergence
of Internet - an information revolution. At the
dawn of 21 st century, Interspace - the next generation
of Internet, opens up opportunities for new socio-economic
models for the emerging knowledge-based society,
global village, and democratization of creativity.
This necessitates communication overcoming language
barrier and also access to multilingual information
in natural modes of queries. Technology advances
very fast whereas many linguistic communities lag
far and far behind as the time passes. This results
into sprawling digital divide. Is the technology
to divide or to Unite ? India was aware of the technological
challenges and the local constraints. Development
of language technology in India may be categorized
in three phases. During A-Technology Phase (1971-1990),
focus was on Adaptation technologies; abstraction
of requisite technological designs and competence
building in R&D institutions. During B-Technology
Phase (1991-2000), focus was on developing Basic
technologies, generic information processing tools,
interface technologies and cross-compatibility conversion
uilities. During this phase, TDIL (TechnologyDevelopment
for Indian Languages) Programme was initiated. more.....
|
