indic-computing-users — Discussing the usage of indian language capable tools

[Indic-computing-users] Debate from ILUG-Chennai mailing list

[Frederick N. <fr...@by...>]

--__--__--

Message: 1
From: BGanesh <bg...@vs...>
Organization: Sunya
To: Bharathi S <bha...@la...>,
   Indian Linux User Group - Chennai <il...@ae...>
Subject: Re: [Ilugc] Indian Language support under Linux / X
Date: Sat, 21 Dec 2002 13:31:10 +0530

Hello,

> > IndLinux - Indian GNU/Linux project has done an amazing job.  The
> > screenshots are.. man impressive... :)

	I must admist they look nifty.

>   Our patch for GNU/Linux Kernel 2.2.17 (old :) )is presently
>   available in the above.
>
>   Similarly Solutions for X-Window is also available.
>
>   Both soluction are NOT depend any Encoding and Font solution. i.e
>   User can use any type of encoding (ISCII, Unicode, TSCII,...) and
>   any fonts.

I took a look at the site, and it is an answer to the problem, but I 
wouldn't think of it as a /solution/. IMHO, a solution must be based on 
standards, which will make it implementable (are the patches accepted into 
the X tree? kernel tree?). 

At some stage we need to have a standard for Indian languages, and adhere to 
it. There must be some convergence on this, say encodings for instance. Which 
might be right forum to bring this up? I know that the DOE has set ISCII as 
its standard, and I think it is the right direction to proceed in. Opinions?

best regards
BGa
-- 
We will find a way, or we will make one - Hannibal

--__--__--

[Indic-computing-users] LinuxJournal (www.linuxjournal.com) on internationalization

[Frederick N. <fr...@by...>]

CHECK OUT THE Nov 2002 issue of Linux Journal, which has
internationalization as its cover story. Olexiy Ye Tykhomyrov describes
the basic aspects of i18n and provides a sample i18n output
program. This article introduced the GNU gettext system. Page
52 onwards. He can be contacted at ti...@ff...

	Extract: Typically, a programmer works on the source code
	and a translator deals with the corresponding .po file,
	which may be created with the copy command from the .pot
	file or directly from the source of the xgettext program.

	Glance over the .po file, and you will see it has a header
	and entries for translating. Here is an example of an entry:

	#This is my own commentary
	#: counter.c:25
	#, c-format
	msgid "You typed %d %s \n"
	msgstr "Vous avez tape %d %s \n"

	It's simple. You translate phrases from msgid and put
	the results into the msgstr fields. If a line starts
	with #:, it is a reference to the source. If it starts 
	with #, it shows an entry's attributes. You can add
	your own comments in lines starting with two 
	symbols: #  (the pound sign and a white space).

	After copying the template .pot file information (.po)
	or creating a new one with the xgettext command,
	you can start translating. Generally, this job can be
	done by another person using his or her favourite editor.
	(X)Emacs is not a bad choice for this job, but KBabel,
	part of KDE, is an even better one. If you are going to
	participate in a team of translators, it is highly
	recommended that you use KBabel....

RESOURCES: 

Internet Assigned Number Authority (IANA)   www.iana.org

Jim Flowers' X Logical Font Description Conventions
www.msu.edu/`huntharo/xwin/docs/xwindows/XLFD.pdf

Tomohiro KUBOTA's Introduction to i18n
www.debian.org/doc/manuals/intro-i18n

Nandine Kano's Development International Software for Windows 95 and
Windows NT, Microsoft Press, 1995 (ISBN 1-55615-840-8)

Introduction to gettext
www.gnu.org/software/gettext

Matthias Keifer's The KBabel Handbook
docs.kde.org/2.2.2/kdesdk/kbabel

Qt Reference Documentation: doc.trolltech.com/3.0/

[Indic-computing-users] Font selection logic and other questions

[Sandip B. <sa...@li...>]

If I have to unicode based fonts for the same character range, how
does the app rendering component e.g. pango, etc. decide which font to
use?

I read in one of the docs that the X font-server, which is part of
most distrib causes problems in displaying Indic scripts. The doc
suggested that I use X own ability to read truetype files. But the doc
wasn't very helpful regarding the actual reason behind the
problem. What is it?

Mozilla uses Gtk as the base toolkit if I am not wrong. Does it use
the pango rendering component too?

An OT question, on the Win32 platform, does pango still use its own
font selection and rendering logic? Or does it pass along the work to
the OS own capability to do the same?

- Sandip
-- 
--------------------------------------------------------
Sandip Bhattacharya
sandipb <@> bigfoot.com
http://www.sandipb.net             GPG/PGP: 0x08EB637C
--------------------------------------------------------

[Indic-computing-users] Re: Gedit displaying bangla

[Sandip B. <sa...@li...>]

On 20/12/02 23:51 +0530, Sandip Bhattacharya thus thundered:
> > > > What version of Gedit are u using ??
> > > > I have attached a Bangla file - lemme know how gedit handles that
> > > > -sdg-
> > > 
> > > Nope, it doesn't. Yudit can, though. BTW, my gedit version is
> > > 2.0.2. Is that the bad news?
> > > 
> > What version of Pango do u have??
> 
> 
> [sandip@planetneptune cd]$ rpm -q pango
> pango-1.1.1-1
> 

WT*? What is with the pango version on redhat? It seems that pango
version 1.0.5 is the latest: (ftp://ftp.gtk.org/pub/gtk/v2.0/)

How can redhat bundle pango-1.1.1???

- Sandip

-- 
--------------------------------------------------------
Sandip Bhattacharya
sandipb <@> bigfoot.com
http://www.sandipb.net             GPG/PGP: 0x08EB637C
--------------------------------------------------------

[Indic-computing-users] (Fwd) RE: New version of VOLT

[Dr. U.B. P. <pav...@vi...>]

------- Forwarded message follows -------
Subject:        	RE: New version of VOLT
Date sent:      	Mon, 16 Dec 2002 22:05:16 -0800
From:           	"Paul Nelson" <pa...@wi...>
To:             	"Dr. U.B. Pavanaja" 
<pav...@vi...>

Reverse chaining substitution (new in OT spec 1.4) and the 
ability to
group lookups for more efficient processing. The second will be
helpful for Indic text.

Regards,

Paul

-----Original Message-----
From: Dr. U.B. Pavanaja [mailto:pav...@vi...] 
Sent: Monday, December 16, 2002 9:59 PM
To: Paul Nelson
Subject: New version of VOLT


Hi Paul,

I saw new release of VOLT. What's new in it?

Rgds,
Pavanaja--------------------------------------------
---------
Dr. U.B. Pavanaja
Editor, Vishva Kannada
World's first Internet magazine in Kannada
http://www.vishvakannada.com/

Note: I don't worry about pselling mixtakes



------- End of forwarded message -------------------------------
-----------------------------
Dr. U.B. Pavanaja
Editor, Vishva Kannada
World's first Internet magazine in Kannada
http://www.vishvakannada.com/

Note: I don't worry about pselling mixtakes

[Indic-computing-users] Re: [LIG] NEWS-LINK: Bengali Windows version by Oct 2003

[Guntupalli K. <kar...@fr...>]

On Mon, 16 Dec 2002 21:04:35 +0530
Sandip Bhattacharya <sa...@li...> wrote:

> 
> Real scary news on how Microsoft is planning to "help" out the state
> everywhere. - Sandip
> 
> P.S. My apologies for  including the whole article, soemthing I
> normally refrain from. But this scared me a LOT.
> 
> http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/cms.dll/html/uncomp/articleshow?artid=31482910
> 
> Bengali Windows version by Oct 2003
 
 Too late for MS & BillG,  Bengali Linux will be ready well before it.
 
See http://www.bengalinux.org
 
Regards,
Karunakar

-- 
Hating people is like burning down your house to get rid of a rat -
Anon

---------------------------------------------------
* Indian Linux project, www.indlinux.org          *
* Indic-Computing project, indic-computing.sf.net *
---------------------------------------------------

[Indic-computing-users] NEWS-LINK: Bengali Windows version by Oct 2003

[Sandip B. <sa...@li...>]

Real scary news on how Microsoft is planning to "help" out the state
everywhere. - Sandip

P.S. My apologies for  including the whole article, soemthing I
normally refrain from. But this scared me a LOT.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/cms.dll/html/uncomp/articleshow?artid=31482910

Bengali Windows version by Oct 2003

 KOLKATA: A Bengali version of Windows and MS Office is likely to be
 available by October 2003 enabling connectivity in rural West Bengal
 and cross-border e-access with Bangladesh, West Bengal IT Minister
 Manab Mukherjee said on Monday.

"Microsoft CEO Bill Gates has approved a proposal to enable the use of
Bengali in Windows and MS Office and it is likely to be available by
October 2003," Mukherjee told newspersons after revalidating an August
2001 MoU with Microsoft, represented by its India President Rajiv
Nair.

Mukherjee said Microsoft had sought the advice of the state government
on issues of accuracy of Bengali language.

Besides the proposed version, Microsoft has Tamil and Hindi versions.

The minister said Microsoft was also considering Kolkata as one of the
destinations for setting up IT training academies in the country.

On collaboration projects, he said Microsoft had completed work on IT
roadmaps for six government departments -- transport, agriculture
marketing, health, panchayat and land reforms -- and also prepared a
blueprint for creation of a citizen database.

Mukherjee said the citizen database and citizen interface projects,
intended to provide more security, better planning and identification
of Below Poverty Line (BPL) population, was awaiting the nod from the
Centre.

The TCS/WEBEL G2C portal project was executed on Microsoft technology,
Mukherjee added.

On e-governance initiatives, Mukherjee said Microsoft had developed
products for land record management, application for registration
offices, a soon to be launched West Bengal government portal, mail
messaging system of the WBSWAN and local area network at the state
secretariat. "Kolkata Police is in the process of using applications
developed by the National Crime Records Bureau in association with NIC
and Microsoft for linking of 45 police stations," he said.

The minister said under the IT training initiatives, around 150
personal assistants to secretaries of the government were trained by
Microsoft along with personnel Webel, state government's executing
agency.

Microsoft had also offered to set up a trainer's training facility at
a leading technical institution, which would be selected soon,
Mukherjee said.


-- 
--------------------------------------------------------
Sandip Bhattacharya
sandipb <@> bigfoot.com
http://www.sandipb.net             GPG/PGP: 0x08EB637C
--------------------------------------------------------

[Indic-computing-users] subscription

[Neepa S. <sha...@ho...>]

please subscribe me for users list.

Neepa.



Neepa K. Shah
Computer Dept.
Gujarat Vidyapith.




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Re: [Indic-computing-users] Re: Abiword :Devanagari, Marathi Translation

[Guntupalli K. <kar...@fr...>]

On Fri, 13 Dec 2002 07:17:10 +0000 (GMT)
Andrew Dunbar <hip...@ya...> wrote:

>  --- jitendra <jit...@vs...> wrote:
> > Dear Andrew
> > Thank you so much.
> 
> You're welcome.  I'm very eager to see Indic languages
> working in AbiWord and other free software.
> 
> > How exactly does one chose a keyboard.
> > I work on both Windows and Linux.
> 
> On Linux there are different programs and procedures
> for the console and for X Windows.  I'm pretty sure
> there are newer easier ways now for both Gnome and
> KDE too.  But I'm assuming for now that Indic keyboard
> layouts are not included.  I don't have the answers
> right here but perhaps next week I may since then I
> will have my own computer and internet connection for
> a short while.
> 
> On Windows it depends which version.  95, 98, 2000,
> etc all have slightly different ways of choosing the
> keyboard layout but you can always find them by
> looking
> in "Control Panel".  Windows 2000 and Windows XP
> definitely do have Hindi and Sanskrit support - you
> may need the install CD though.
> 
> > I have yudit which has the keyboard for devanagari.
> 
> Yudit has its own keymaps because it supports many
> languages which the OSes do not support directly.
> AbiWord currently does not do this but I feel it will
> have to at some point.  You might want to file a bug
> report at http://bugzilla.abisource.com
> 

 We already have inscript keymaps ( xkb & xmodmap ) available for all
indian languages, some of them have now become part of XFree86 ( dev,
guj, gur, tml, ben  in /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/xkb/symbols ), Kannada,
Telugu , Malayalam & Oriya are also coming up soon .
 More info is available at  http://www.indlinux.org/keymap/keymaps.php
 Gkb setting for GNOME are also ready, should come up by Gnome 2.2
release

> 
> You ought to know that we are just now working on
> Pango/FreeType support so rendering Devanagari is
> going
> to be quite buggy for a while but having people trying
> to use AbiWord and filing bug reports will help very
> much.  Getting actual Indian hackers working on
> AbiWord
> would be a dream come true!
>
 Not been using Abiword for a while, will check out this latest one..

Regards,
Karunakar

-- 
Hating people is like burning down your house to get rid of a rat -
Anon

---------------------------------------------------
* Indian Linux project, www.indlinux.org          *
* Indic-Computing project, indic-computing.sf.net *
---------------------------------------------------

Re: [Indic-computing-users] Problem with KDE support for UTF-8 indic fonts

[Guntupalli K. <kar...@fr...>]

On Sun, 15 Dec 2002 10:29:10 +0530
Sandip Bhattacharya <sa...@li...> wrote:

> 
> 
> [ A small question kept nagging me. Why are so many people seemingly
> trying to get GNOME support Indic languages properly, but I dont see
> much work on the KDE front? Even though in my experience, most of
> the users migrating to Linux prefer KDE for its resemblence to the
> Windoze world? No flamewar intended here please. Was just a
> thought.] 
> 
> My first naive attempt at making a bangla
> webpage (http://www.puroga.com/banglatest.html) met with disaster
> when I found out that mozilla still doesn't support Indic combining
> characters very well.(Screenshot comparison of source and display at
> http://www.puroga.com/banglatest.jpg) But at 
> least I could make out what the webpage is trying to say. 
> 
 Mozilla CVS has some rendering stuff for Devanagari though using some
font encoding . OpenOffice developer releases also have Indic
rendering supported.

> But you can see from the window title of mozilla that KDE hasn't
> been able to even try to find out the font involved. Is this still
> on KDE's todo list? Indic rendering (or maybe Unicode based fonts) I
> mean.
> 
 Yeah, it is! Indic rendering for KDE will come from Qt. Right now Qt
3.x has basic unicode support for Indic.
I am in touch with Qt developers for this. There have been few threads
on kde-i18n-doc list in this context. Since Qt has a wider domain (
not just KDE ), so it will take some more time for stuff to come up
(4-6 months). Issue in Qt is whether to make a solution based on some
font encoding have a quick fix  or take more time & do opentype stuff
.

Regards,
Karunakar

-- 
Hating people is like burning down your house to get rid of a rat -
Anon

---------------------------------------------------
* Indian Linux project, www.indlinux.org          *
* Indic-Computing project, indic-computing.sf.net *
---------------------------------------------------

[Indic-computing-users] TDIL updates

[Guntupalli K. <kar...@fr...>]

Hi All,
  TDIL has put up its July 2002 newsletter, containing info on
Bengali, Oriya & Assamese.

http://tdil.mit.gov.in/tdil-july-2002.pdf

Also a small writeup on Inscript Keyboard layout

http://tdil.mit.gov.in/keyoverlay.htm

More on ISCII & inscript in 
http://tdil.mit.gov.in/isciichart.pdf


Regards,
Karunakar

-- 
Hating people is like burning down your house to get rid of a rat -
Anon

---------------------------------------------------
* Indian Linux project, www.indlinux.org          *
* Indic-Computing project, indic-computing.sf.net *
---------------------------------------------------

Re: [Indic-computing-users] What is the reality about Opentype fonts?

[Keyur S. <key...@ya...>]

--- kar...@vs... wrote:
>
> Luc Devroye (many of you must be aware of his fabulous web site on fonts)
> has a radically different opinion on OpenType fonts:
> http://cgm.cs.mcgill.ca/~luc/opentyperant.html
> 
> If his comments are true, why are so many of us trying so desperately for
> free, quality, Opentype fonts or tools to convert TTF to OTF? And, what
> impact is this having on the pace of Indian language computing? 

I think Luc Devroye sees a threat to TT and Type1 font with the
introduction of OpenType font. I believe that OpenType font format had been
introduced to deal with the complexities of advanced typography and some
scripts like Arabic and Indic. It is very difficult to achieve the similar
result using TT or Type1 font. Also, OpenType font is not substitution for
TT or Type1 font. We need OpenType font only when we want to develope
applications with rich features. For example, most applications using only
Latin script won't need support for OpenType font because Latin script is
relatively simple compared to other scripts like Indic and Arabic. TT or
Type1 format can fulfill the need in this case.

We have learnt from experience that OpenType format is most suitable for
Indic scripts compared to other font format because this font format can
deal with complex issues of substitution and positioning of glyphs.

It is true that TT format is binary and we can not edit the font in simple
text editor. But it is very painful to edit font in some text editor and
then run some program to see actual effect after modification. Most font
designer want some graphical tool which can provide WYSIWYG kind of result.
As long as font format is open anyone can design such graphical tool to
edit glyph and other information. We all know that TT and OpenType font
format is open to all and anyone can develop free-of-cost font editor.

Font vendors are not forcing other people to buy fonts developed by them. 
People will purchase font from them only when they see some good result. It
is not true that both MS Windows and Mac OS support ONLY OpenType font
format. They do support other font formats also. It is very difficult to
have only one common font format and then convert to other formats on the
fly. Font technology has been developed over the period of time. It is very
difficult (and sometimes impossible) to provide upward compatibility.

Finally, the author has not made it clear why OpenType font format is
"bad".

Regards,
Keyur


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[Indic-computing-users] What is the reality about Opentype fonts?

[<kar...@vs...>]

Dear colleagues,

Luc Devroye (many of you must be aware of his fabulous web site on fonts) has a radically different opinion on OpenType fonts:
http://cgm.cs.mcgill.ca/~luc/opentyperant.html

If his comments are true, why are so many of us trying so desperately for free, quality, Opentype fonts or tools to convert TTF to OTF? And, what impact is this having on the pace of Indian language computing? 

Regards,
R. Karthik Venkatesh

Editor, ICT Support Centre
OneWorld.net
Web: www.itrainonline.org

[Indic-computing-users] [Fwd: [Bengalinux-users] Aspell Bengali word list released]

[Sayamindu D. <unm...@So...>]

-----Forwarded Message-----

From: Taneem Ahmed <ta...@ey...>
To: dic...@be...
Cc: us...@be..., bd...@ya..., ilu...@il...
Subject: [Bengalinux-users] Aspell Bengali word list released
Date: 14 Dec 2002 18:50:16 -0500

Hi All,

The first version of Aspell Bengali Word list has been released. Special
thanks to Dr. Abhijit Das for providing the word list. With out his
contribution this package would not be possible.

The package can be downloaded from:

  http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=43331

The README file included in the package has information about installing
the package.


Note:

- GNU Aspell version >= 50.0 is needed. Most of the (if not all) current
Linux dist comes with version 33.x, However, this version is not supported
by GNU Aspell team anymore. You can get the latest version of GNU Aspell
form:
  http://aspell.net

- After installing the Bengali word list, if you want to use the program
'aspell' to spell check a Bengali text file, 'aspell' will expect the text
document to be in is13194-bn encoding. Unfortunately there are not enough
support for this encoding, however, Aspell is designed to work with only
8Bit encoding. As is13194-bn is the only 8 bit encoding for Bengali
compatible with Unicode, we decided to go with it. If you have an UTF-8
encoded text file, you can use `bspeller` version 0.3. This version will 
very soon be available at:
  http://www.bengalinux.org/downloads
or,
  http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=43331


Thanks,

Taneem

If it is true that the only paradises are those we have lost, I know what
name to give the tender and inhuman something that dwells in me today.


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works.

[Indic-computing-users] Problem with KDE support for UTF-8 indic fonts

[Sandip B. <sa...@li...>]

[ A small question kept nagging me. Why are so many people seemingly
trying to get GNOME support Indic languages properly, but I dont see
much work on the KDE front? Even though in my experience, most of the
users migrating to Linux prefer KDE for its resemblence to the Windoze
world? No flamewar intended here please. Was just a thought.] 

My first naive attempt at making a bangla
webpage (http://www.puroga.com/banglatest.html) met with disaster when
I found out that mozilla still doesn't support Indic combining
characters very well.(Screenshot comparison of source and display at
http://www.puroga.com/banglatest.jpg) But at 
least I could make out what the webpage is trying to say. 

But you can see from the window title of mozilla that KDE hasn't been
able to even try to find out the font involved. Is this still on KDE's
todo list? Indic rendering (or maybe Unicode based fonts) I mean.

- Sandip

-- 
--------------------------------------------------------
Sandip Bhattacharya
sandipb <@> bigfoot.com
http://www.sandipb.net             GPG/PGP: 0x08EB637C
--------------------------------------------------------

[Indic-computing-users] Re: [PRC] Re: LINK-INDIANISATION: Bharateeya-OpenOffice

[Frederick N. <fr...@by...>]

Feedback... FN

On Fri, 13 Dec 2002, David Lloyd-Jones wrote:


> Of course I hope you all realise that any language that gets 
> computerised is also going to get a huge influx of Anglicisms. A whole 
> younger generation will grow up using "connect," "log," "crash," and a 
> thousand other computerish terms in their everyday speech, no matter 
> what script it is written in.
>  
> I think this is fine. It hasn't hurt Hebrew any to be re-created as a 
> modern language complete with aircraft, computers and modern physics and 
> chemistry. Still, you should be ready for a certain amount of resistance 
> and objection from people who don't want this to happen to the "purity" 
> of their cultures.
>  
>                                                                     -dlj.
>  
> 
> 
> Knowlege is power... share it equitably!
> 
> _______________________________________________
> prc mailing list
> pr...@ma...
> http://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/prc
> 

[Indic-computing-users] FROM PRC: Font editor

[Frederick N. <fr...@by...>]

On Fri, 13 Dec 2002, Shridhar Daithankar wrote:


> On 12 Dec 2002 at 21:44, Sayamindu Dasgupta wrote:
> > complications which may be involved), and that will need some hacking.
> > Of course, a major advantage is that there is already an "official"
> > Devnagari font from M$, and you can use that for reference. 
> 
> I was editing mangal in pfaedit and found that pfaedit specified the unicode 
> character above each glyph. Looking at these two, looks like mangal has largely 
> distorted unicode specification It gives glyph of 'kra' instead of 'ka'. SO if 
> a keyboard map conforms to unicode, it is likely that fonts like mangal will 
> produce garbage..
> 
> > Also, good quality "Free" (as in Free Speech)Open Type tables editing
> > tools are not available, and so, you may have to use M$ tools to do the
> > job :-(
> 
> I am really waiting for open type fonts. But ttfs are good enough to work with 
> IMO. for the time being that is..
> 
> Bye
>  Shridhar
> 
> --
> Hubbard's Law:	Don't take life too seriously; you won't get out of it alive.
> 
> Knowlege is power... share it equitably!
> 
> _______________________________________________
> prc mailing list
> pr...@ma...
> http://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/prc
> 

[Indic-computing-users] Re: Abiword :Devanagari, Marathi Translation

[<hip...@ya...>]

 --- jitendra <jit...@vs...> wrote:
> Dear Andrew
> Thank you so much.

You're welcome.  I'm very eager to see Indic languages
working in AbiWord and other free software.

> How exactly does one chose a keyboard.
> I work on both Windows and Linux.

On Linux there are different programs and procedures
for the console and for X Windows.  I'm pretty sure
there are newer easier ways now for both Gnome and
KDE too.  But I'm assuming for now that Indic keyboard
layouts are not included.  I don't have the answers
right here but perhaps next week I may since then I
will have my own computer and internet connection for
a short while.

On Windows it depends which version.  95, 98, 2000,
etc all have slightly different ways of choosing the
keyboard layout but you can always find them by
looking
in "Control Panel".  Windows 2000 and Windows XP
definitely do have Hindi and Sanskrit support - you
may need the install CD though.

> I have yudit which has the keyboard for devanagari.

Yudit has its own keymaps because it supports many
languages which the OSes do not support directly.
AbiWord currently does not do this but I feel it will
have to at some point.  You might want to file a bug
report at http://bugzilla.abisource.com

> How can I use that.

I doubt that there is a way to use Yudit keymaps with
other programs but I may be wrong.  Read the Yudit FAQ
or email the Yudit people.

> If there is any explanatory note onhow to proceed (i
> will uncover the same from the sources if necessary
> which I will download ) , it will be great.

All I can suggest is doing Google searches for things
such as "Linux hindi keyboard" or "inscript linux".
I would do it for you but I don't have time right now
sorry.

> My attempt would be to get a few LUGgers(Linux User
> Groups) to write the necessary keyboard drivers that
> can be added to Abiword.
> I wish hindi (and also marathi) become seamlessly
> available on the lists of languages offered.

Me too!  I really want AbiWord to be able to support
every language of India!  Once we have one working it
is very easy to get all the others to work too since
they turn out to be very similar.

> I am a faculty (grey haired) in an engg college and
> have motivated a few students to work on the indian
> language enablement of Free software.

You ought to know that we are just now working on
Pango/FreeType support so rendering Devanagari is
going
to be quite buggy for a while but having people trying
to use AbiWord and filing bug reports will help very
much.  Getting actual Indian hackers working on
AbiWord
would be a dream come true!

> Our governments and public at large are at
> crossroads to choose between Free software(due to
> non-availability, if available no awareness,if aware
> lack of support)on one hand and proprietory software
> (cost) on the other.
> Thois is a critical time when cross-platform soltion
> like Abiword with so many features , and with all
> the advantages of 'free' software can make a
> tremendous difference.
> I have been in touch with the government authorities
> and can say with confidence that this will amke a
> big difference.
> I hope you can help.I also hope my other colleagues
> will join the effort.

Please let your contact know that it would be
wonderful for companies and governments to put funding
into the development of AbiWord that would otherwise
go to companies such as Microsoft.  This way everybody
can benefit for a long time.  Because it's open source
everybody can work on it - including businesses and
governments.  Working on free fonts for Indian
languages or funding such work would also be
fantastic.

Thanks for your continued interest.  Good luck.

Andrew.

> Warm Regards
> Jitendra
> 
> 
> 
> Andrew Dunbar wrote:
> 
> >  --- jitendra <jit...@vs...> wrote:
> > > I have installed abiword 1.0.2 and also
> installed
> > > raghu anf mangal font I choose hindi as language
> and
> > > chosse mangal as font.In the font dialogue box,
> I
> > > see hindi characters quite well.
> > > The input does not occur.
> > >
> > > Kindly help.
> > >
> > > Once I succeed in inputting hindi I propose to
> take
> > > up translation in Marathi (mr_IN)
> > > Regards
> > >
> > > Jitendra
> >
> > Hi Jitendra.  It would be very cool to have a
> Marathi
> > translation for AbiWord!
> > The problem you have is that you don't have a
> Hindi or
> > Devanagari keyboard set up.  I'm guessing that you
> are
> > using Linux.  If you were using Windows 2000 or
> > Windows
> > XP you can choose a keyboard for Hindi and maybe
> even
> > Marathi and AbiWord will mostly work.  There will
> > probably be problems with ligatures and maybe
> lines
> > will be refreshed differently to how they look as
> they
> > are typed.
> >
> > Now if you are using Linux you will have to locate
> a
> > Hindi/Marathi/Devanagari/Sanskrit keymap for X.
> > I think there is a project called "Inscript"
> around
> > that deals with this.  I don't believe such
> keymaps
> > are included with the current common Linux
> distros.
> > Please search around on the internet and let us
> know
> > what success you have so we can include it in our
> > documentation.
> >
> > Good luck!  Andrew.
> >
> > =====
> >
>
http://linguaphile.sourceforge.net/cgi-bin/translator.pl
> http://www.abisource.com
> >
> > __________________________________________________
> > Do You Yahoo!?
> > Everything you'll ever need on one web page
> > from News and Sport to Email and Music Charts
> > http://uk.my.yahoo.com
>  

=====
http://linguaphile.sourceforge.net/cgi-bin/translator.pl http://www.abisource.com

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Everything you'll ever need on one web page
from News and Sport to Email and Music Charts
http://uk.my.yahoo.com

[Indic-computing-users] Interesting note on font editors...

[Frederick N. <fr...@by...>]

From Shridhar Daithankar <shr...@pe...>

---------- Forwarded message ----------

Hi all,

I am sure many people must be knowing this but just repeating..

I found a great font editor pfaedit(http://pfaedit.sourceforge.net/) that can 
do very good font manipulation. 

Now if artists out there could get a decent unicode font that implements 
devnagari correctly, and with tricks of two keyboard layouts as discussed in 
lasty few days, we could rapidly get linux and devnagari together.

Anybody good at font editing? There are some good GPL fonts out there like 
http://www.nongnu.org/freefont/resources.html. Now if we could integrate the 
glyphs from those fonts in proper places in a unicode font.

I am willing to help all I can. I am sure somebody from 
http://www.indlinux.org/marathi/ and their mailing list must be interested as 
well. 

Will be posting there as well..

Bye
 Shridhar

--
Accident, n.:	A condition in which presence of mind is good, but absence of	
body is better.		-- Foolish Dictionary

Knowlege is power... share it equitably!

_______________________________________________
prc mailing list
pr...@ma...
http://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/prc

[Indic-computing-users] Response to Kalyan Krishnan's Querries

[jitendra <jit...@vs...>]

Dear All,
 I thought you all may also be interested in what is being discussed.
If not, indicate so that I will keep you out of the loop.
Sorry for inconvenience , if so.
May I request you to add your views.

Regards
Jitendra

[Indic-computing-users] Abiword :Devanagari, Marathi Translation

[jitendra <jit...@vs...>]

Dear Andrew
Thank you so much.
How exactly does one chose a keyboard.
I work on both Windows and Linux.
I have yudit which has the keyboard for devanagari. How can I use that.If there is
any explanatory note onhow to proceed (i will uncover the same from the sources if
necessary which I will download ) , it will be great.
My attempt would be to get a few LUGgers(Linux User Groups) to write the necessary
keyboard drivers that can be added to Abiword.
I wish hindi (and also marathi) become seamlessly available on the lists of languages
offered .
I am a faculty (grey haired) in an engg college and have motivated a few students to
work on the indian language enablement of Free software.
Our governments and public at large are at crossroads to choose between Free
software(due to non-availability, if available no awareness,if aware lack of
support)on one hand and proprietory software(cost) on the other.
Thois is a critical time when cross-platform soltion like Abiword with so many
features , and with all the advantages of 'free' software can make a tremendous
difference.
I have been in touch with the government authorities and can say with confidence that
this will amke a big difference.
I hope you can help.I also hope my other colleagues will join the effort.
Warm Regards
Jitendra



Andrew Dunbar wrote:

>  --- jitendra <jit...@vs...> wrote:
> > I have installed abiword 1.0.2 and also installed
> > raghu anf mangal font I choose hindi as language and
> > chosse mangal as font.In the font dialogue box, I
> > see hindi characters quite well.
> > The input does not occur.
> >
> > Kindly help.
> >
> > Once I succeed in inputting hindi I propose to take
> > up translation in Marathi (mr_IN)
> > Regards
> >
> > Jitendra
>
> Hi Jitendra.  It would be very cool to have a Marathi
> translation for AbiWord!
> The problem you have is that you don't have a Hindi or
> Devanagari keyboard set up.  I'm guessing that you are
> using Linux.  If you were using Windows 2000 or
> Windows
> XP you can choose a keyboard for Hindi and maybe even
> Marathi and AbiWord will mostly work.  There will
> probably be problems with ligatures and maybe lines
> will be refreshed differently to how they look as they
> are typed.
>
> Now if you are using Linux you will have to locate a
> Hindi/Marathi/Devanagari/Sanskrit keymap for X.
> I think there is a project called "Inscript" around
> that deals with this.  I don't believe such keymaps
> are included with the current common Linux distros.
> Please search around on the internet and let us know
> what success you have so we can include it in our
> documentation.
>
> Good luck!  Andrew.
>
> =====
> http://linguaphile.sourceforge.net/cgi-bin/translator.pl http://www.abisource.com
>
> __________________________________________________
> Do You Yahoo!?
> Everything you'll ever need on one web page
> from News and Sport to Email and Music Charts
> http://uk.my.yahoo.com

Re: [Indic-computing-users] [bytesforall_readers] Jharkhand tribal script hops on to digital bandwagon (fwd)

[Guntupalli K. <kar...@fr...>]

On Tue, 10 Dec 2002 23:28:22 +0530 (IST)
Frederick Noronha <fr...@by...> wrote:

> Posted originally by Ashish Kotamkar. FN
> 
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> 
> 
> 
> Tolong hops on to digital bandwagon
> - Move to save tribal script
> The Telegraph, India
> http://www.telegraphindia.com/1021121/asp/jharkhand/story_1404374.asp
> 
 Any contacts available for this person who did it? We need to collect
info on these scripts too, little known or dying and possibly have
them accomodated into standards. (Ok! I know we have to work on the
main ones first!)

Regards,
Karunakar

-- 
Hating people is like burning down your house to get rid of a rat -
Anon

---------------------------------------------------
* Indian Linux project, www.indlinux.org          *
* Indic-Computing project, indic-computing.sf.net *
---------------------------------------------------

Re: [Indic-computing-users] Re: [PRC] GNU/Linux in Hindi: KDE and IIT-Madras (fwd)

[Viveka N. K <vi...@la...>]

On Yesterday ind...@li... wrote to Vivek :

FN:}This input is from Naba Kumar, a Gnome developer in India. He is
FN:}contactable at <kh...@ya...>
FN:}FN
FN:}
FN:}---------- Forwarded message ----------
FN:}
FN:}On Mon, 2002-12-09 at 13:24, Shridhar Daithankar wrote:
FN:}> 
FN:}> Another thing I would like to see from users POV is to switch keyboard map on 
FN:}> the fly. In windows I can select keyboard map per application. So that I can 
FN:}> type in devnaagari in one app. and english in another. I don't know how this 
FN:}> can be done with X. But sure there must be a way out. Otherwise how can I write 
FN:}> marathi comment in a C++ file..;-)

Here, In IITM, we have modified the X-library to support the languages other
than English. We are having the toggle Key as Left_CTRL+Left_SHIFT and you
can switch between the English and other language. 
 
FN:}GNOME2 has an applet (docked in the panel) which does the keyboard map
FN:}switching. It shows the current input method in the applet along with
FN:}the country's flag. The switch is done with shift+shift (left and right)
FN:}to switch back and forth between two locales.
FN:}
FN:}

-- 


-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= 
Viveka Nathan K, DON Lab, IITM, Chennai-36, India. Ph:044-2578904/8353        
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Do Best, will make you Best

[Indic-computing-users] [ICON-2002]: LATEST CALL FOR PARTICIPATION (fwd)

[Frederick N. <fr...@by...>]

---------- Forwarded message ----------

                     LATEST CALL FOR PARTICIPATION=20


     ICON-2002: INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON NATURAL LANGUAGE PROCESSING
                            Mumbai, India
                       December 18-21, 2002
            http://www.iiit.net/conferences/icon2002.html
 =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=
=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=
=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D
   IMPORTANT DATES:
=20
   PRE-CONFERENCE TUTORIALS :   December 18, 2002
=20
   CONFERENCE               :   December 19-21, 2002
=20
   VENUE                    :   National Centre Software Technology=20
                                Raintree Marg, Opp. Kharghar Railway Statio=
n,
                                Sector 7, CBD Belapur,
                                Navi Mumbai - 400614, India.
                                (Please visit http://www.ncst.ernet.in/kbcs=
2002)
 =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=
=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=
=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D
    UPDATE:=20

   * LOW COST HOSTEL ACCOMMODATION IS AVAILABLE=20

   * EXTENSION OF DEADLINE
     for seeking financial support    :  December 10, 2002
 =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=
=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=
=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D
       The International Conference on Natural Language Processing(ICON)
   will be held in Mumbai, India during December 18-21, 2002.  The
   conference is intended to act as a forum for promoting interaction
   among researchers in the field of Natural Language Processing in India
   and abroad.  The conference will be preceded by a day of pre-conference
   tutorials on December 18, 2002. The conference is being held
   concurrently with KBCS-2002: International Conference on Knowledge
   Based Computer Systems.

           Outline
=20
             1. Technical Programme
             2. Special session on Linguistics & Natural Language Processin=
g
             3. Panel discussion: Role of Linguists in Building NLP Systems
             4. Keynote address abstract
             5. Invited talk abstract
             6. Pre-Conference tutorials        =20
             7. Registration details =20
=20
 *************************************************************************
                       TECHNICAL PROGRAMME=20
 *************************************************************************
 KEYNOTE ADDRESS
=20
 Starting  with Complex  Primitives Pays  Off: Complicate Locally, Simplify
 Globally
  Prof. Aravind K Joshi, University of Pennsylvania

 INVITED PAPER
=20
 NLP, Information-mining and the New Global Village
  Prof. Benjamin Tsou, City University of Hong Kong

 MORPHOLOGY
=20
 Morphological Analyzer for Tamil
 P Anandan, K. Saravanan, Ranjani Parthasarathi and T.V.Geetha
=20
 Morphological Parsing Using Ample, SenTrans, and  PC-PATR
 Robert D. Eaton
=20
 Improved Porter's Algorithm for  Root Word Stemming
 M Saravanan, P.C. Reghu Raj, Vadali Srinivasa Murty and S.Raman
=20
 Classification of Words Based on Affix Evidence
 Utpal Sharma, Jugal Kalita and Rajib Das
=20
=20
 PARSING
=20
 A Constraint Based Parser Using Integer Programming
 Akshar Bharati, Rajeev Sangal and T. Papi Reddy
=20
 SProUT - Shallow Processing with Unification and Typed Feature Structures
 Markus Becker, Witold  Drozdzynski, Hans-Ulrich Krieger, Jakub Piskorski, =
Ulrich Schafer
 and Feiyu Xu
=20
 Treebank Development: the TUT Approach
 Leonardo Lesmo, Vincenzo Lombardo and Cristina Bosco
=20
 A TAG Approach to Basic Clause Patterns in Oriya
 Rajat Kumar Mohanty
=20
 A Dependency Parser for Hindi
 Mark Pedersen
=20
 Saarthaka: A Generalized HPSG Parser for English and Hindi
 D Sharma, K Vikram, Manav R Mital, A Mukerjee and A M Raina
=20
=20
 STATISTICAL LANGUAGE MODELS
=20
 Readability Modelling Using Statistical Regression- a Study on Bangla Text=
s
 Sreerupa Das and B.B.Chaudhuri
=20
 Statistical Language Modeling Using Latent Syntactic-Semantic Analysis
 Dharmendra Kanejiya, Arun Kumar and  Surendra Prasad
=20
 Basic Statistical Analysis of Corpus and Cross Comparison among Corpora
 Prakash Rao K,  Akshar Bharati,  Rajeev Sangal  and S.M.Bendre
=20
=20
 LEXICAL RESOURCES
=20
 Electronic Thesaurus for Tamil
 S Rajendran=20
=20
 Automatic Generation of Concept Dictionary from a Document
 Nitin Verma and Pushpak Bhattacharyya
=20
=20
 MACHINE TRANSLATION
=20
 An Algorithm for Aligning Sentences in Bilingual Corpora  Using Lexical In=
formation
 Akshar Bharati, Sriram V,  Vamshi Krishna A,  Rajeev Sangal  and S.M. Bend=
re
=20
=20
 SEMANTICS=20
=20
 Evaluating the WASPBENCH, a Lexicography  Tool Incorporating Word Sense Di=
sambiguation
 Rob Koeling and Adam Kilgarriff
=20
 Applying Semantic Classes in Event Detection and Tracking
 Juha Makkonen, Helena Ahonen-Myka and Marko Salmenkivi
=20
 Using Verb-Noun Association for Word Sense Disambiguation
 Dipak Kumar Narayan, Pushpak Bhattacharyya
=20
 Using Semantic Representations in Question Answering
 Sameer S. Pradhan, Valerie Krugler, Wayne Ward, Dan Jurafsky and James H. =
Martin
=20
=20
 INFORMATION EXTRACTION AND RETRIEVAL
=20
 A Document Space Model for Automated Text Classification based on Frequenc=
y Distribution Across Categories
 Akshar Bharati, Kiran Varanasi, Chaitanya Kamisetty, Rajeev Sangal and S.M=
=2EBendre
=20
 Knowledge  Extraction from Indo-Aryan Family of Natural Languages Using a =
Rule Based Approach
 Kuntal Dey, Sunil Kumar Dubey, Avinash Ghalke and  Pushpak Bhattacharyya
=20
 Phrase Grammar for Precision Content Retrieval
 P.C. Reghu Raj and S. Raman
=20
=20
 DIALOGUE
=20
 Modelling Dialogue Systems by Finite Automata
 Ivan Kopecek  and Libor Skarvada
=20
 A Dialogue Manager for Semantic Web Documents
 Paulo Quaresma and Irene Pimenta Rodrigues
=20
=20
 FONT, KEY BOARD
=20
 Indian Languag Support for X-Window System
 Anitha Nalluri, Bala Saraswathi A., Bharathi S., Hema A. Murthy,=20
 Patricia J., Ranbir Singh S., Timothy A. Gonsalves, Vidhya M.S. and Viveka=
 Nathan K.
=20
 Finite State Transliteration of South Asian Text Encodings
 John C. Paolillo
=20
=20
 OCR
=20
 LEKHAK: A system for Online Recognition of Handwritten Tamil Characters
 B.J. Manikandan, Gowri Shankar, V.Anoop, A.Datta and V.S.Chakravarthy
=20
=20
 SPEECH
=20
 Speech Database for Indian Languages- A Preliminary Study
 A.Nayeemulla Khan, Suryakanth V. Gangashetty, and S. Rajenderan
=20
 Building Hindi and Telugu Voices using Festvox
 S.P. Kishore, Rajeev Sangal and M. Srinivas
=20
 A Data-Driven Synthesis Approach For Indian Languages using Syllable as Ba=
sic Unit
 S.P. Kishore, Rohit Kumar, and Rajeev Sangal
=20
 Text-To-Speech (TTS) in Indian Languages
 N. Sridhar Krishna, Hema A. Murthy and Timothy A.Gonsalves
=20
 Language Identification Using Spectral Vector Distribution Across the Lang=
uages
 T.Nagarajan and Hema A. Murthy
 *********************************************************************
                 SPECIAL SESSION  ON  19 DECEMBER 2002
 *********************************************************************
             LINGUISTICS AND NATURAL LANGUAGE PROCESSING
=20
 Transfer Grammar Rules: The case of relative clause construction in Englis=
h,=20
 Hindi and Tamil
   B.Lakshmi Bai=20
 =09
 Indian Languages and the Future of Information Technology
   Durgesh Rao =20
=20
 An online E-dictionary of idioms (Muhavara) and proverbs (Lokokti) and Tea=
cher=20
 controlled Expert System
   Pramod K Sharma=20
=20
 The Preparation of Typological Grammars: The Need of the Hour
   K.V.Subbarao=20
=20
 **********************************************************************
                  PANEL DISCUSSION ON 20 DECEMBER 2002
 **********************************************************************
    Role of Linguists in Building Natural Language Processing Systems
        Moderator:  Prof Aravind K Joshi, University of Pennsylvania
        Panel: Shivaji Bandopadhyaya;  Pushpak Bhattacharya;
               Tanmoy Bhattacharya; Achla Misri Raina;  U.N Singh=20
=20
 **************************************************************************=
*****
                      KEYNOTE ADDRESS  ABSTRACT
 **************************************************************************=
*****
 Starting  with Complex  Primitives Pays  Off: Complicate Locally, Simplify=
=20
 Globally
   Prof. Aravind K Joshi, University of Pennsylvania

 ABSTRACT

 In setting up a formal system to specify a grammar formalism,=20
 the conventional (mathematical) wisdom is to start with
 primitives (basic primitive structures) as simple as possible and then
 introduce various operations for constructing more complex structures. An
 alternate approach is to start with complex (more complicated)
 primitives, which directly capture some crucial linguistic  properties
 and then introduce some general operations for composing these complex
 structures. These two approaches  provide different domains of locality,
 i.e., domain over which various types of linguistic dependencies can be
 specified. This latter approach, characterized as Complicate Locally,
 Simplify Globally (CLSG), pushes non-local dependencies to become local,
 i.e., they arise in the basic primitive structures to start with. Although
 my talk will concern primarily with natural language processing, it is
 expected that this approach will productive in other domains of AI.
 =20
 The CLSG approach has led to some new insights into syntactic description,
 semantic composition, language generation, statistical processing, and
 psycholinguistic properties, all these with possible relevance to the
 cognitive architecture for language. I will describe these results in
 an introductory manner. I will also briefly talk about the implications
 of this approach for the characterization of discourse structure.=20
 =20
 Towards the end of my talk I will briefly discuss the applications of
 this approach to the description of secondary and higher structures
 (folded structures) of some biological sequences.
=20
 **************************************************************************=
*****
                         INVITED  TALK  ABSTRACT=20
 **************************************************************************=
*****
 NLP, Information-mining and the New Global Village
 Prof. Benjamin Tsou, City University of Hong Kong


ABSTRACT

    Rapid Cyber Age developments within the Global Village have necessitate=
d=20
 much more sophisticated efforts in information extraction and mining than=
=20
 hitherto attempted or contemplated.  This is because the identification of
 new words or unknown words, especially proper nouns or named entities,=20
 constitutes an increasingly pressing major challenge for any on-line NLP=
=20
 system, ranging from word segmentation to search engine construction.  As=
=20
 civilization develops and Man moves forward, new cultural and physical=20
 artifacts are =93necessarily named=94 ala Kripke, as salient aspects of th=
e=20
 concomitant information growth gain differential importance. =20
=20
     What is the extent and nature of these new named entities?  How and=20
 why do they come about?  Why do older named entities dissipate?  What=20
 constraints could there be on net gain or loss  - and, most importantly,=
=20
 what may be their broader and practical impact on natural language process=
ing? =20
 These new questions, not yet posed in onomastics, are timely and important=
 ones=20
 for information mining. =20
=20
     The general, balanced, or specialized corpora, as traditionally unders=
tood,=20
 are seen to offer unnecessary but inherent limitations on what information=
 may=20
 be mined from them and fully utilized.  The idea of synchronous corpus is=
=20
 introduced and exemplified through LIVAC, a 100 million character Chinese =
corpus=20
 drawn from different Chinese communities.  A WINDOWS approach is taken to=
=20
 explore the phenomenal growth and attrition of named entities in language,=
 as=20
 well as the actuation and realization of lexical innovation across space=
=20
 (different communities) and time (different years), and the possible under=
lying
 regularities. =20
=20
     Word entropy is explored as an important step towards validating=20
 the creation of intermediate dynamic repertoire and database especially us=
eful for
 large scale unsupervised learning in future hybrid approach.
 **************************************************************************=
*****
                        PRE-CONFERENCE TUTORIALS
 **************************************************************************=
*****
 The conference will  feature 4 half day tutorials,on December 18, 2002. =
=20
=20
 1 (pre-noon): Automatic Text Summarization - Dr. Inderjeet Mani
=20
 2 (pre-noon): Introduction to Computational Linguistics - Dr. Dipti Sharma
               and Mrs. Amba Kulkarni

 3 (afternoon): How to sketch words - Dr. Adam Kilgarriff
=20
 4 (afternoon): Interlingua Based Information Processing in the
                Context of Indian Languages - Dr. Pushpak Bhattacharya
=20
 TUTORIAL ABSTRACTS=20
=20
  1.  Automatic Text Summarization
        Dr Inderjeet Mani, The MITRE Corporation, USA
=20
 With the explosion in the quantity of on-line text and
 multimedia information in recent years, demand for automatic text
 summarization technology is growing. The goal of automatic text
 summarization is to take a source document or documents, extract
 information content from it, and present the most important content in a
 condensed form in a manner sensitive to the needs of the user and task. In
 this tutorial, I will provide an overview of the latest developments
 in automatic summarization, including methods for producing extracts
 and abstracts, evaluation strategies, and new problem and application
 areas. Human abstracting, and linguistic and statistical methods will be
 described, with an emphasis on empirical results. Recent evaluations such
 as SUMMAC, the Document Understanding Conference, and the Japanese Text
 Summarization Challenge will be discussed. Links to relevant resources,
 including bibliographies, will be provided. The goal of this half-day
 tutorial is to familiarize participants with the state of the art in
 automated text summarization and to give them a perspective on the current
 research frontier in this area. The expected audience of the proposed
 tutorial includes researchers, graduate students in Natural Language
 Processing, Information Retrieval, and Artificial Intelligence, software
 developers, and research managers. A general background in information
 retrieval and/or natural language processing is desirable, and familiarity
 with computer science and artificial intelligence is required.
=20
=20
 2. Introduction to Computational Linguistics
      Dr Dipti Misra Sharma & Mrs Amba P Kulkarni, International Institute
      of Information Technology, Hyderabad
     =20
  Applications such as machine translation requires
 that linguists participate actively in their development.
 Language resources are a primary need for any
 type of language processing. Resources, whether they are
 bi-/Mono-lingual Dictionaries or grammars with precise
 rules for computer applications need experts' knowledge.
 Linguists play a crucial role in the development
 of these resources. However, analysing large amount of
 data and coming to generalizations can be a laborious task.
 Technology can now help in gathering and grouping the data for
 analyses. The data is not only useful for the linguists
 for drawing generalizations but it also presents aspects of
 language which offer insight in the theory building.
=20
 The tutorial aims at familiarising linguists with the tools
 and resources available for various computer applications
 such as machine translation, information extraction etc.
=20
=20
 3.  How to sketch words
       Dr Adam Kilgariff, ITRI,  University of Brighton, Brighton, UK
=20
 Since the advent of computerised corpora in linguistics (computational
 or otherwise), the Key Word In Context (KWIC) concordance has been the
 basic corpus linguist's tool. It allows the researchers to efficiently
 view  the  evidence  of  how  the  word behaves. Various well-designed
 interfaces,   with   flexible   sorting   criteria   and  support  for
 sophisticated searches, have been developed (eg WordSmith, Xkwic).
=20
 The  limitations  of KWIC become apparent for large corpora and common
 words:  there  is  too  much data to get a good overview of the word's
 behaviour by simply looking at a sample of instances.
=20
 Church  and Hanks (1989) introduced the Mutual Infomation statistic to
 summarise the data, for cases where there was too much to read it all,
 and  so  that  high-salience patterns were brought to the researcher's
 attention.  This  (and  other  statistics  offered since) have offered
 improved  access  to  the information implicit in the corpus. However,
 the statistics have not been ideal, and the lists have thrown together
 items taking different grammatical roles in relation to the word being
 investigated.  Thus  the  same  list  will  include a verb's subjects,
 objects, modifiers, and other material which has frequently been found
 in   the   vicinity   of  the  keyword  but  does  not  stand  in  any
 linguistically significant relation to it.
=20
 Word  sketches  are  a  response to these shortcomings. They provide a
 list  of  statistically  salient  collocations  for  each  grammatical
 relation  (and  use  an  improved salience statistic). They provide an
 easily-readable  account  of  a  word's  grammatical and collocational
 behaviour,  suitable for students of the language, lexicographers, and
 the language technologist who needs to understand the behaviour of the
 words that are critical to an application.
=20
 4.  Interlingua Based Information Processing in the Context of Indian
     Languages
       Dr Pushpak Bhattacharyya, Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay
=20
 India is a land of multiple languages and dialects. It is
 necessary to enable these systems of communication onto=20
 the internet and cross the language Barrier even among the=20
 local languages. Though Hindi is the natioanl language of=20
 the country, there are other very important languages like=20
 Bengali, Marathi, Tamil and so on which are spoken by
 numerous people not only within the counry, but overseas also.
=20
 In this talk, we describe our work on the use of a recently=20
 proposed interlingua called the Universal Networking Language=20
 (UNL) in the context of Indian Languages. UNL is a medium of=20
 information exchange and transfer on the web in the natural=20
 languages of the world. 12 languages of the world have been=20
 linked through the UNL by means analysers and generators.
 We have been working on the analysers and generators for=20
 English, Hindi, Marathi and Bengali. Also we are doing theoretical=20
 studies on this multilinguality framework. Finally, all this=20
 effort requires rich lexical resources like wordnets and semantically=20
 enriched dictionaries. The talk will also touch upon our effort=20
 at building the Indo Wordnet.
 **********************************************************************
                     REGISTRATION DETAILS
 **********************************************************************
   IMPORTANT DATES:
=20
   Pre-Conference Tutorials        :   December 18, 2002
=20
   Conference                      :   December 19-21, 2002
=20
   Registration deadline           :   December 12, 2002
   (After December 12, 2002=20
    on site registration only)
=20
   EXTENSION OF DEADLINE
   for seeking financial support    :  December 10, 2002
  =20
   * LOW COST HOSTEL ACCOMMODATION IS AVAILABLE *

   ACCOMMODATION DETAILS:  Please visit http://www.ncst.ernet.in/kbcs2002=
=20
 =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=
=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=
=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D
   REGISTRATION FEE=20
=20
   MAIN  CONFERENCE
=20
     Delegates from Non-profit                 Rs. 2000
     & Educational Organisations               (US$ 50)=20
=20
     Other Delegates                           Rs. 3000
                                               (US$ 70)=20
=20
     Full time bona-fide students              Rs. 950=20
     from Indian academic institutes
     (Limited number of slots only)
=20
=20
     PRE-CONFERENCE TUTORIALS (Half Day) =20
     Registration charges for each tutorial =20
=20
     Delegates from Non-profit                 Rs. 1000
     & Educational Organisations               (US$ 25)=20
=20
     Other Delegates                           Rs. 1200
                                               (US$ 30)=20
=20
     Full time bona-fide students              Rs. 500=20
     from Indian academic institutes
     (Limited number of slots only)
=20
=20
    * The students must produce a certificate from the Head/Director of the=
ir=20
      respective institutes/Colleges regarding their full-time bona-fide=20
      status to avail special student registration. The conference registra=
tion
      fee for students does not include the copy of the proceedings.
   =20
    * Limited funds are available to support travel and stay of faculty and=
=20
      students.  Special funds are available to support travel and stay of
      faculty and students of linguistics, including registration fees.
=20
    * For financial support send the registration form along with the appli=
cation
      for support giving details of your educational qualifications, percen=
tage
      of marks and past & ongoing activities.  They may be sent by email to
      ico...@ii... or by post to ICON-2002 Secretariat.
=20
=20
 Encl: ICON-2002: REGISTRATION FORM
 **************************************************************************=
****
                            ICON-2002       =20
                   International Conference On
                   Natural Language Processing
                 December 18 - 21, 2002, Mumbai
=20
=20
                        REGISTRATION FORM
=20
=20
 Last Name/Surname: ________________First Name: ________________________
 Address: _______________________________________________________________
                ___________________________________________________________=
____
 City: ____________________________State:_______________________________
 Country: ____________________________Pincode:_____________________________
 Affiliation: _____________________________________________________________=
__
 Phone (O): _______________________________(R):____________________________=
_
 Fax: _____________________________Email:_____________________________
=20
 Total registration amount:   ____________________________
 Cheque/Bank draft No. _______________________    Bank  ___________________=
_
=20
 CONFERENCE REGISTRATION:
=20
 [  ]=09Delegates from not-for-profit R&D           : INR 2000,   US$ 50
         and Educational Institutions
=20
 [  ]=09Others Delegates=09                    : INR 3000,   US$ 70
=20
 [  ]=09Full time bona-fide student from Indian     : INR 950
         academic institutions
=20
 PRE-CONFERENCE TUTORIALS ON DECEMBER 18, 2002
=20
 Registration fee for each half-day tutorial is as follows.
 [  ]=09Delegates from not-for-profit R&D=09    : INR 800,    US$ 20
         and Educational Institutions=20
 [  ]=09Others Delegates=09=09=09    : INR 1200,   US$ 30
 [  ]   Full time bona-fide students from Indian    : INR 500 =20
        academic  institutions=20
=20
 Please select the tutorials you would like to attend:=20
=20
 [  ] Tutorial 1: Automatic Text Summarization
 [  ] Tutorial 2: Introduction to Computational Linguistics
 [  ] Tutorial 3: How to sketch words
 [  ] Tutorial 4: Interlingua Based Information Processing in the  Context =
of                        =20
                  Indian Languages
=20
 NOTE:
 -  All tutorials are half day. =20
 -  Tutorials 1 & 2 will be held in  parallel sessions in the morning.
 -  Tutorials  3 & 4  will be held in  parallel sessions in the evening.
 -  Avoid time clashes while selecting the tutorials
=20
 CANCELLATION/REFUND POLICY:  There will be no cancellation fee till=20
 December 12, 2002. After December 12, 2002 there will be no refund.
=20
 MODE OF PAYMENT: All payments should be made by a crossed cheque or=20
 demand draft in favour of  "International Institute of Information Technol=
ogy,=20
 Hyderabad"=20
=20
 Please return the filled in form along with a cheque or demand=20
 draft  to  ICON 2002 Secretariat.
=20
   ICON-2002  Secretariat
   Language Technologies Research Centre
   International Institute of  Information  Technology
   Gachibowli,  Hyderabad - 500 019
   Email Id: ico...@ii...
 ******************************************************************

[Indic-computing-users] Re: [PRC] GNU/Linux in Hindi: KDE and IIT-Madras (fwd)

[Frederick N. <fr...@by...>]

This input is from Naba Kumar, a Gnome developer in India. He is
contactable at <kh...@ya...>
FN

---------- Forwarded message ----------

On Mon, 2002-12-09 at 13:24, Shridhar Daithankar wrote:
> 
> Another thing I would like to see from users POV is to switch keyboard map on 
> the fly. In windows I can select keyboard map per application. So that I can 
> type in devnaagari in one app. and english in another. I don't know how this 
> can be done with X. But sure there must be a way out. Otherwise how can I write 
> marathi comment in a C++ file..;-)
> 
GNOME2 has an applet (docked in the panel) which does the keyboard map
switching. It shows the current input method in the applet along with
the country's flag. The switch is done with shift+shift (left and right)
to switch back and forth between two locales.

-- 
Regards,
-Naba

Ma Bell is a mean mother!

Knowlege is power... share it equitably!

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