Bharati script
Bharati Script is a constructed script, and an abugida created by a research team led by V. Srinivasa Chakravarthy at IIT Madras. It is designed to serve as a common script or link script for Indian languages.[1][2][3][4][5][6]
| Bharati Script Bharati Lipi | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Script type | |
| Creator | Research team led by Srinivasa Chakravathy |
| Direction | left-to-right |
| Language | Multiple Indian languages |
| Related scripts | |
Parent systems | Devanagri, Latin script, Tamil script, Telugu script, Kannada script, Malayalam script, Bengali–Assamese script
|
Motive and Development
Bharati is proposed to be a common script or link script of Indian languages, including both Indo-Aryan and Dravidian language families, much as the Latin script serves as a common script for many European languages including English, French, Spanish, German, Italian, etc.
It may also serve the purpose of providing a written means for tribal languages that don't have a writing system.
V. Srinivasa Chakravarthy started this project at IIT Madras and a research team led by him developed it.[1][7][2][3][4][5][6]
Features
- Bharati script borrows characters and concepts from multiple scripts including Latin script, Devanagari, Tamil script, Gujarati script, etc.[2][8]
- It is a left-to-right written abugida, thus it features consonant characters modified by vowel diacritics.
- The diacritics maybe placed below, upon or in the right of primary character.[4]
- Like the Gujarati script, it does not feature a running horizontal line above the characters (which is a characteristic of the Devanagari script).
Fonts
Bharati script is supported in Windows, macOS, Linux and Android through the fonts made by the Bharati Script team. Currently two fonts exist:[7]
- NavBharati: a TrueType Font (TTF) which supports transliteration of Devanagari, Tamil, Telugu, and Malayalam scripts into Bharati script.
- SundarBharati: an OpenType Font (OTF) which supports transliteration of Devanagari, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Bengali and Malayalam scripts into Bharati script.
The fonts work in two ways:
- transliterating already existing content into Bharati script - the text is automatically transliterated upon changing the font
- directly using an Indic Input tool (such as Intelligent Input Bus in unix-like systems) to type - either of the Bharati fonts is chosen, and as the text is typed, it appears in Bharati script[7]
Optical Character Recognition (OCR)
An OCR system has been developed which can recognise written or printed characters in Bharati script and convert them into digital text.[9][3] This system has been integrated into one of the Bharati Script's official Android apps: "Bharati Handwriting Keyboard".
Android apps
Bharati Script has its own set of official apps:[7]
- Bharati Keyboard: It is a virtual keyboard that outputs the corresponding character in the script that has been chosen, based on the button pressed in Bharati script based button layout.
- Bharati Handwriting keyboard: It helps to input Bharati Script by recognising handwriting done on the screen, using OCR technologies.
- Bharti Transliterator: It helps to transliterate texts written in other scripts to Bharati script.
Mudra Bharati
A finger-spelling system is proposed alongside Bharati script called 'Mudra Bharati', for use as a sign language.[7]
Unlike American Sign Language convention, Mudra Bharati utilises two hands.
A prototype has been developed using Self-Organizing Maps and Convolutional Neural Networks which can give out characters in Devanagri and Tamil scripts after recognition from Mudra Bharati.[10]
References
- "Why It Isn't Easy to Devise an Intermediary Script for Indian Languages". The Wire. Retrieved 2022-10-07.
- "One nation, one script: Bharati is the common script for all Indian languages". The New Indian Express. Retrieved 2022-10-07.
- Desikan, Shubashree (2019-04-27). "IIT Madras team develops easy OCR system for nine Indian languages". The Hindu. ISSN 0971-751X. Retrieved 2022-10-07.
- Naik, Manali; Chakravarthy, V. Srinivasa (2016-09-29). "A comparative study of complexity of handwritten Bharati characters with that of major Indian scripts". arXiv:1609.09227.
{{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires|journal=(help) - "Script which helps read 22 Indian languages on cards". Deccan Chronicle. 2017-10-04. Retrieved 2022-10-07.
- Ramya, M. (July 17, 2013). "IIT prof writes one script to unify 22 languages". The Times of India. Retrieved 2022-10-07.
- "Unified script of India - Bharati". bharatiscript.com. Retrieved 2022-10-07.
- "Dr. V. Srinivasa Chakravarthy: Bharati is a script not a language". www.india.com. Retrieved 2022-10-07.
- Vorugunti, Chandra Sekhar; Chakravarthy, Srinivasa; Pulabaigari, Viswanath (2018). "An efficient Multi Lingual Optical Character Recognition system for Indian languages through use of Bharati Script" (PDF). Bharati Script. Retrieved 2022-10-07.
- Amal Jude Ashwin, F.; Chakravarthy, V. Srinivasa; Kopparapu, Sunil Kumar (2021). "An AI-Based Detection System for Mudrabharati: A Novel Unified Fingerspelling System for Indic Scripts". In Ekštein, Kamil; Pártl, František; Konopík, Miloslav (eds.). Text, Speech, and Dialogue. Lecture Notes in Computer Science. Vol. 12848. Cham: Springer International Publishing. pp. 425–434. doi:10.1007/978-3-030-83527-9_36. ISBN 978-3-030-83527-9. S2CID 237403848.