Malayalam at Crossroads
- Manoj K. Puthiyavila
[Published in Kerala Calling, October 2019 issue]
In the age of localisation of language nobody can ban or stall the growth of any regional language. Localisation of language is a major evolving business area which benefits the IT hardware and software industries in a big way. The recent boom of computer and smart phone industries was not possible without the language localisation which was mooted by these companies. Think of the days when sending even sms, in Malayalam was not possible. Then there was no need of smartphones for the majority of Malayalies. The primitive cell phones ware used only for making calls. In the case of people in other language States having educational backwardness the situation was more severe.
But, when the phones began displaying Indian languages, the situation was changed dramatically. Then came the WhatsApp, cell phone versions of e-mail, Facebook and other communication and social media speaking these regional languages. The same was the case of computers. If computers were incapable to process Indian languages, how many of them would have sold in our country? Will there exist any DTP centre here? Imagine how the market was expanded due to the language localisation of computers and phones. It involves billions of dollars business. So, the business world which has large influence over governments in various countries will never allow anybody to impose restrictions on any regional language in any country.
Localisation of language is a process that includes the cultural adaptation and translation of software and various types of contents. It comprises the translation of websites, apps, texts, products like video, voiceover, graphics including info graphics, other multimedia contents, video games etc. If a dialog box of an app or the commands or link icon on a website display Malayalam, it is translated and embedded by the manufacturer of the product, either hardware or software. They get it done with the help of the local community itself. If your Google displays the word ‘തെരയുക’ instead of ‘search’ and searches Malayalam text using Malayalam words, it is the result of localisation. Google has now opened new avenues like bringing back handwriting, along with typing, in our own language.
This localisation, which led to the recent worldwide blossoming of regional languages, is global. The popular and mass movements from the Jasmine Revolution to the recent Hong Kong protests were bolstered by this. The proclaimed cashless India can also be realised only if the mobile money transfer apps are localised. All these point to the reality that the importance and applications of regional languages are growing irresistibly. The reason; the global giants like Microsoft, Intel, IBM, Apple, Samsung, Nokia, Google, Yahoo, Facebook etc. who govern the world are investing billions and billions of dollars in language localisation.
The real force behind this local language revolution is nothing but the Unicode. Unicode is a universal code or unified code of characters of all languages in the world which enables some special capabilities like mechanical translation, transliteration, conversion to audio and braille, ability to search and sort, display on any e-platform and online etc. It was developed by the Unicode Consortium formed by all the major hardware and software corporates in the world. They have their own language experts for various languages including our Malayalam. Major companies like Google, Yahoo, Facebook etc. also engage linguists in research and development of solutions and applications. User communities and usage of local languages are also growing in an explosive manner in tandem with these developments. Malayalam is one of the major beneficiaries among them.
Malayalam is growing outside the cyber world also. The cyber Malayalam itself contributes in a big way in this growth. The freedom and opportunities that the social media provide, has nurtured the creativity and social engagement of ordinary people, even the deprived sections. A number of new, especially young, creative talents including poets, story tellers, essay writers, documentary makers, commentators, analysts, consultants etc. have emerged in the last decade. They came out of the virtual world to the real like print publications, documentary/short film festivals and poetry events.
Localisation of Wiki has made Malayalam one among the top few languages with regard to the volume of the digital content. The State Government is also promoting Malayalam by implementing it in more departments as official language and even conducting PSC examinations for the technical posts in Malayalam. The decision of KPSC has led to another development – preparation of a glossary of scientific and technical terms in Malayalam, a reasonable dictionary. A proper mechanism has also been suggested for this. The recent nation-wide discussion on the language policy of our country also turned in to another major instance of serious discussions on the importance of regional languages and mother tongues in the public domain in the eve of this year’s Malayalam day. In this favourable context nobody can kill Malayalam except us.
Even now, all our newspapers except the largest four are creating their enormous content in ASCII format which is obsolete since the birth of Unicode. Content created in any form other than Unicode is inappropriate for archival and other digital purposes. Most of the publishers of books and periodicals are also turning a blind eye towards this technology that enables the growth and sustainability of languages.
The major apprehension of the publishers is the lack of an affordable software with Unicode compatibility for pagination (page making). Propriety software are there but costly. The best way out is a free software solution and there is one in the free domain – the Scribus. It works in Unix, Linux, BSD, Mac OS X, Haiku and Microsoft Windows operating systems and supports TIFF, JPEG, Adobe Photoshop, eps and svg. But the software first developed in 2003 was not fully capable to handle complex text layout (CTL) like Malayalam. Even then three progressive organisations (KSSP, DAKF and KSEBOA) had been using the old version of Scribus to layout their publications, two monthly magazines and a fortnightly newsletter, for the last few years, only because of their strong stand against propriety software.
Fortunately most of the limitations were resolved by a recent initiative by the Government of Oman. They made the Scribus more user-friendly and compatible with the Arabic. This new version can easily be customised for Malayalam and other Indic languages. A laudable effort in this regard has been taken by the management of Janayugam daily, one of our leading second level newspapers. They adapted a customised version of Scribus, produced three new Malayalam Unicode fonts, conducted a series of training for their entire staff in the new software and are bringing out their daily with a totally new and beautiful face.
Now the remaining newspapers, periodicals, book publishers, printing presses, the designer community and proprietors of DTP centres can follow this path which is essential for their survival. It is a bit expensive affair but can easily be tackled through crowd funding by forming a consortium. It will be easy for this consortium to mobilise an amount of rupees two crores for this purpose. If it happens, it will be a quantum jump in the current / ongoing upsurge of our mother tongue. It will be path breaking not only in pagination or publishing but also in proper archiving of the enormous data they generate every day and in all other language computing activities which can make Malayalam a richer, more powerful and advanced one.
