Submissions/Interscript Transliteration A Case for Konkani Language

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Review no.

125

Title of the submission

RESOLVING A CONFLICT WITH THE HELP OF TECHNOLOGY: KONKANI WIKIPEDIA, ENABLING INTER SCRIPT TRANSLITERATION

Type of submission (workshop, tutorial, panel, presentation)
Presentation
Author of the submission
Gurudath Bantwalkar and Hari Prasad Nadig
E-mail address or username (if username, please confirm email address in Special:Preferences)
User:Konkani Manis, User:HPN
Country of origin
India
Affiliation, if any (organization, company etc.)
World Konkani Centre, Mangalore
Personal homepage or blog

World Konkani Centre: http://www.vishwakonkani.org/ Hari Prasad Nadig: http://hpnadig.net/

Abstract (please use no less than 300 words to describe your proposal)

Usage of multiple scripts in Konkani language has hindered sharing of knowledge between the communities that speak the same language but are separated by usage of script. Moreover the conflict over the usage of script in some official situations has created rift in the language community. Groups are at logger heads and the language is losing its ground in the schools as the focus of the activists is shifting to upholding the script of their choice from popularising the Konkani Language especially in Karnataka State. Since a considerable amount of literature has been created in some of the major scripts, the people who are comfortable with one script are opposing the other script to take a status of common script.

In the advent of Internet, technology has enabled an accessible knowledge sharing platform for Indian languages through Unicode. Presently the ability to ‘Search’ in Indic scripts as well as the ability to do ‘Transliteration’ and ‘Translation’ for the Indian language content has enabled more avenues.

An initial effort to create a Konkani Wikipedia lost its momentum because of script conflict. It was a real obstacle to the users to create four different pages in four scripts for each content page without which the content created in the language would limit itself for the specific region which the script is in use. Hence the Konkani language Wikipedia is still at the incubator stage.

Desirable Solution: A system which can allow user to create the content in the script of his/her choice and allow another user to read the same text in another script of his/her choice is the need of the hour. A extension for Media Wiki to transliterate between scripts would contribute to a resolution of a major conflict among Konkani speaking communities and few other Indian language communities that are facing the same issue.

Track (People and Community/Knowledge and Collaboration/Infrastructure)
Infrastructure
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Yes, we will attend.

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  1. Hindustanilanguage 06:00, 11 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  2. Tinucherian 04:40, 6 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  3. Millosh 14:18, 20 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  4. Brion VIBBER 18:09, 29 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  5. Blahma 12:48, 1 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  6. Vibhijain 13:00, 4 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  7. -Sodabottle 03:53, 24 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  8. Suma Nadig
  9. AniVar 12:25, 24 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  10. Amir E. Aharoni