Translation Industry India

8/3/2019 Translation Industry India

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Language and Translation Industry of India:A Historical and Cultural Perspective

(XVIII FIT World Congress 2008, Shanghai, China)

Ravi Kumar

President

Indian Translators Association, New Delhi, India

E-mail: [email protected]


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A Glance at Languages of India

As per Census 1961 count- 1652 mother tonguesbelonging to five different language families. Apart fromthem 527 mother tongues were considered unclassifiableat that time.

As per Census 2001 count -1635 mother tongues wereclassified as 1635 rationalized mother tongues and 1957names which were treated as unclassified and relegatedto the other mother tongue category.

The 1635 rationalized mother tongues were furtherclassified into 234 mother tongues and grouped under

122 languages.


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A Glance at Languages of India122 languages have been further grouped under

Indo-European: 24 languages, with a total population of76.89%, divided into Indo-Aryan (21), Iranian (2) andGermanic (1);

Dravidian: 17 languages, with a total population of 20.82%;

Austro-Asiatic: 14 languages, with a total population of 1.11%;

Tibeto-Burman: 66 languages with a total population of0.01%;

Semito-Hermitic: 1 language, with a total population of 0.01%.


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Twenty-two Indian languages, namely

Assamese, Bengali, Gujarati, Hindi, Kashmiri,Kannada, Konkani, Malayalam, Manipuri,Marathi, Nepali, Oriya, Punjabi, Sanskrit,Sindhi, Tamil, Telugu, Urdu, Maithili,

Santhali, Dogri and Bodo are spoken by 96.56% of thepopulation of the country and the remaining 3.44% of thepopulation speak the rest of the languages.


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A Legacy of Multi-lingualism

Ancient writers used to switch between Pali, Sanskrit,Tamil and Ardhmagadhi.

During medieval period, many scholars had masteredSanskrit, Persian and Arabic.

Throughout the history, scholars have been concernedabout use of simple language to reach common mass intheir local languages, on the other hand languages of thescholars have been different than those for common

mass.


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A Legacy of Multi-lingualism and Bi-lingualism

Linguistically India, with its States and Union Territories,is made of many mini-Indias. Those who are multilingualconstitute some 20% of the total population.

Mobility between different states within India makes itmandatory to be multi-lingual.


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ALegacy of Recorded Bilingualism

One of the significant features ofIndian bilingualism isthat it is complementary. For example, an individual mayuse a particular language at home, another in theneighborhood and the bazaar, and still another in certain

formal domains such as education, administration, andthe like. (J.C. Sharma)


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Language Policies in India The Constitution ofIndia listed fourteen languages

(Assamese, Bengali, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Kashmiri,Malayalam, Marathi, Oriya, Punjabi, Sanskrit, Tamil,Telugu, and Urdu) into its Eighth Schedule in 1950.

Since then, this has been expanded thrice, once toinclude Sindhi, at another time to include Konkani,Manipuri and Nepali.

and most recent one to include Bodo, Santhali, Maithiliand Dogri. The 100th Constitutional Amendment whichadded these four languages into the Eighth Schedule was

supported by all the 338 members present in theParliament.

It has been stated that claims of 33 more languages forinclusion are under consideration.


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Language Policies in India

It is worth mentioning the encouraging reports byUNESCO that has appreciated Indias stand on"maintaining linguistic diversity ... (when) about half ofthe approximately 6000 languages spoken in the world

are under threat, seriously endangered or dying, "it doesappreciate that "India has maintained its extensive andwell-catalogued linguistic diversity".


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Digital Divide

It is interesting to note that though the InformationTechnology boom has brought a revolution to India andIndian computer wizards are making waves in the SiliconValley, yet the Digital Divide continues to plague the

nation. The pace at which Indian society is trying to absorb

these technologies through its organs such as languagehas added one more divide to those already in existence- the "digital divide" resulting in the disparity in access

to information and to the means of communication in21st Century India.


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Digital Divide

Computer penetration in India is estimated to be 7.5 per1000 people but at the same time, the internet is able toreach only about one percent of the total population of

the country.


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Government Initiatives

The Technology Development for Indian Languages(TDIL) is the initiative of the Ministry of Communicationand Information Technology. TDIL has been mandated to

bridge the digital divide by developing IT tools in locallanguages in India.

Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (CDAC)is government of India run organization involved inresearch and development of computers, known of

development of super computers


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Role of TDIL and CDAC Translation Support System GyanNidhi Dware Dware Gyan Sampada - Mobile Digital Library Chitraksharika

Lekhika On-Line Hindi Vishwakosh On Line IT Terminology Swarnakriti


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Private Initiative In addition, many private players including Indian and

multinational giants like Microsoft, IBM, Infosys, Wipro,TCS, Reliance, Airtel, Vodafone etc. are developingsoftware and applications in Indian languages.

Needless to say, a major search engine like Google hasalready started offering search possibilities in Bengali,Hindi, Marathi, Tamil and Telugu, and there are a seriesof other major players eyeing Indian localizationmarkets.


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CAT Tools Machine Translation in India is relatively young.

The earliest efforts date from the late 80s and early 90s.Prominent among these are the projects at IIT Kanpur,University of Hyderabad, NCST Mumbai and CDAC Pune.

The Technology Development in Indian Languages(TDIL), an initiative of the Department ofIT, the Ministryof Communications and Information Technology(Government ofIndia), has been instrumental in fundingthese projects.

Since the mid and late 90s, a few more projects have

been initiatedat IIT (Bombay), IIT (Hyderabad), AU-KBC Centre (Chennai) and the Jadavpur University(Kolkata).


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CAT Tools Anglabharat (and Anubharati)MT Anusaaraka MT MaTra HAMT Mantra MT

UCSG-based English-Kannada MT UNL-based MT between English, Hindi and Marathi MT Tamil-Hindi Anusaaraka and English-Tamil MT English-Hindi MAT for news sentences


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CAT Tools Private Initiative

English-Hindi Statistical MT - IBM

BhashaIndia - Microsoft


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Translation and localization market

World


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Translation and localization market

India

The Nasscom-Deloitte study on Indian IT Industry:

Impacting the Economy and Society says the IT/ITESindustry's contribution to the country's GDP hasincreased to a share of 5.2 percent in 2007, as against1.2 percent in 1998.

And with a growth of 27 per cent in 2007, in 2008, theIndian

ITES market is set to cross US$ 25.43 billion.


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Translation and Localization Market - India Based on the reports of NASSCOM that India is sharing 5.2% of the ITES market,

and according to the growth pattern depicted by Common Sense Advisory if wetake India's share as 5% of the world market, currently Indian language marketsize may be taken at approx. value of $500 millions which may be summed, interms of activities, as follows:


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SWOT Analysis

Strenght

Presence ofIT giants, IT service providers and the BPOboom create a high demand for Language Professionals.Agencies, Institutions / Universities / DiplomaticMissions, Corporate houses, Government bodies, BPOs,Publishing Houses, E-books, Software companies, etc. alluse the services ofLanguage Professionals in a big way.


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SWOT AnalysisWeakness

Translators are not conversant with CAT tools

No stringent quality control processes

Use of CAT tools has been on the rise : Like TRADOS, SDLX,wordfast, Across, etc. are costly

Cost effective alternatives can be

Heartsome, XLIFF editor


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SWOT AnalysisOpportunities

Opportunities abound in India, one of the largestmarkets in the world, not only for Indian languages(Hindi, Bengali, Telugu, Tamil, Marathi, Urdu, Gujarati,etc.) but rather for all languages in combination withEnglish as well.


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SWOT Analysis

Threat

Indian Translators involved in foreign languagetranslation activities face relatively more challenges than

their counterparts involved in translatingI

ndianlanguages.

Global competition is a major factor. This fairly uniquesituation of an Asian country working extensively withforeign languages makes the foreign language Indiantranslator vulnerable to hostility not only from the

traditional opponents of outsourced work but, moredisturbingly, from colleagues within the nation who feelthat it is only their work which has legitimacy.


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Role of Indian Translators Association With newly formed National Translation Mission by Government

ofIndia, ITAINDIA shall play a major role, acting as acommunicator between government and translation communityofIndia.

Assist in joint ventures

Unite translators

Create awareness

Network with national and international bodies and forums

Actively participate in language and translation relatedactivities at national level as well as international level

Fight for the cause of translators community of

India as well asworld in general


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End note

The unique cultural diversity of the Language and TranslationIndustry ofIndia thus provides rich prospects for mutuallyenriching collaborations across the globe.

Accustomed to economize as a philosophy of life, the Indiantranslation industry preserves age old humanistic Asian values

in an age of cut throat competition, thus bringing a two-foldbenefit in an era of soaring prices and plummeting humanrelations.

Even with all these valiant endeavors, a lot still remains to bedone by individuals and companies, as well as by thegovernment, to promote this nascent industry and incorporatethe required changes, to adapt and upgrade skills and to usenew technologies

but the baseline is set, and I am sure the existing synergy willtranslate into great opportunities for those who look towardsIndia as potential investment destination.


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resources www.itaindia.org


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THANKS ! DHANYAVAD !

Translation Industry India

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