An 80 per cent success story
LOVERS of Indian vernacular literature will no longer have to scour bookshops and libraries for Hindi translations of works in other languages. The Indian Institute of Technology in Kanpur has developed a linguistic software called Anusarak that does a fairly competent literal rendering of Kannada text into Hindi.
Based on the principles of Sanskrit grammar enunciated by Panini two millennia ago, the software is a fine example of blending traditional knowledge and modern technology. Paninian grammar is eminently suited to languages in which the meaning of a sentence is generally independent of the positioning of its words. Unlike position-specific grammars, it relies largely on noun-verb relations for meaning. Says Rajeev Sangal, the project leader, "Fortunately, most modern Indian languages share these properties and could be described using Paninian grammar."
Anusarak is not a perfect translator. It provides literal translations, which can be polished up depending on its context. It takes a mere 20 seconds to translate seven Kannada sentences. With a vocabulary of 30,000 root words, Anusarak's renderings are clear enough for even the unexperienced to appreciate editorials, stories, jokes and folk-tales without any assistance.
"Currently, the machine is not equipped to analyse sentences, but still the translation is 80 per cent correct," says Sangal.
The IIT group consisting of linguists, computer scientists and a Sanskrit grammarian has worked on the software since 1984 under a Human Resource Development Ministry project. Programmes to translate Tamil, Telugu and Malayalam into Hindi are expected to be ready by mid-1994.
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