Re: [Indic-computing-users] South Asian languages in cyberspace...

[Ravikant <rav...@sa...>]

Dear Fred,

I wish your questions were more pointed. Still let me try. I can speak for 
Hindi. Do not have the latest figures but Hindi is really doing very well of 
late. In the last couple of years it has been growing at a furious pace. 
Whether we talk about Wikipedia with now more than 20, 000 articles, or the 
two-year old Hindi wikia, especially the kavitakosh, which has more than 
10,000 entries. But the phenomenon that has outpaced everything else is that 
of blogs. The last count three months back was of more than 5000 Hindi blogs. 
There are two more features worth noting: a lot of these blogs are collective 
blogs, some being run as blogzines rather than in the conventional diary/blog 
format. Secondly, the spirit of helping others, popularised initially by Free 
software enthusiasts, is catching up in a much more wider circle, and there 
are people and places volunteering time and effort with the slogan of 'fill, 
share, preach, teach'. Most of the nespapers and magazines are already online 
and any new magazine now always thinks of a web version at its launch itself. 
Lastly, Hindi is getting much more diverse now, both in terms of software 
design and content, as the new languages, hitherto known as its dialects are 
coming into their own interfaces as well as content. This is happening more 
in the realm of free software localisation and blogworld. of course the 
classical divide between Hindi and Urdu has broken down as well in the 
cyberworld. I wish the community could be more forthcoming in terms of 
content generation on sites like wikipedia, esp. in the areas of non-literary 
knowledge production, for that is what a hugely expanding Hindi public domain 
really needs.     

मंगलवार 08 जुलाई 2008 19:09 को, Frederick Noronha [फ़रेदरिक नोरोनया] ने लिखा था:
> Dear all,
>
> I just need some hints that indicate the current status of
> Indian/South Asian languages in cyberspace. Would be grateful for any
> pointers you could send across. Many thanks! FN
> --
> FN * Independent Journalist http://fn.goa-india.org
> Ph +91-832-2409490 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Goa
> http://www.linkedin.com/in/fredericknoronha
>
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