Capitalization Based Hinting

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Quick Summary

Apart from easy-to-use free form transliteration, Microsoft Indic Language Input Tool accommodates experienced users who wish to be more specific by using capital letters. We also expect that with time, as new users get more proficient, they will find use for this feature, as it will help them more accurately transliterate with minimal spelling revisions.

In short, it allows users to enter a capital letter to specify a preference for a long vowel (e.g. bA for बा in Hindi or kE for கே in Tamil) or a hard consonant (e.g. De for डे in Hindi or Li for ளி in Tamil). For a guide on how to use this feature, refer to the links below for each language.

Bengali  Hindi  Kannada  Malayalam  Tamil  Telugu

Each link points to the pertinent questions in our FAQs section. Questions 5 through 9 go over the details of how to use capital letters with Microsoft Indic Language Input Tool.

The Whole Story

One of the most significant challenges we faced while developing the Microsoft Indic Language Input Tool was designing it to be useful for as many different kinds of users as possible.

Computing with and digitally publishing in Indian Languages has a long history. However, the users are, in general, made up of a niche of early adopters/advanced users and a rapidly growing group of new users.

The advanced users have been working with Indian Languages for several years - as professional publishers, writers and linguists, or just language enthusiasts. They have seen the days when the only way to enter Indic text was to learn and use a keyboard layout or a fixed transliteration scheme. Having learnt those layouts and schemes and gotten used to the speed and accuracy, they can settle for nothing less.

On the other hand, new users have only just started entering Indian language text into computers. To learn a keyboard layout or transliteration scheme could be a big barrier for them. Free form transliteration holds instant appeal for the new casual users because of the ability to spell out words naturally in English. By using free-form transliteration, we clearly made the product usable by new users. Yet, we wanted to help more experienced users to get to their word choices easily as well.

Enter capitalization based hinting.

The majority of the transliteration schemes in existence use capital letters to distinguish long vowels from short vowels and hard consonants from soft consonants. In classic free-form transliteration, this distinction is lost. For this reason, apart from free-form transliteration, Microsoft Indic Language Input Tool also allows users to be more specific by using capital letters. We also expect that with time, as new users get more proficient, they will find use for this feature, as it will help them more accurately transliterate with minimal spelling revisions.

In short, it allows users to enter a capital letter to specify a
preference for a long vowel (e.g. bA for बा in Hindi or kE for கே in
Tamil) or a hard consonant (e.g. De for डे in Hindi or Li for ளி in
Tamil). For a guide on how to use this feature, refer to the links
below for each language.

Bengali  Hindi  Kannada  Malayalam  Tamil  Telugu

Each link points to the pertinent questions in our FAQs section. Questions 5 through 9 go over the details of how to use capital letters with Microsoft Indic Language Input Tool.

We hope you find this feature useful. As always, we encourage you to leave comments below to let us know what you think.

Thanks!

Rahul.