मंगलवार, 8 मार्च 2011

Status and Significance of Indian Languages

Status and Significance of Indian Languages in the world for East-West Understanding
(Written on invitation of Durga Dixit for the International Conference on 11-12-13 March organised by Eikyabharati Research Institute, Pune
Friends,
Although I will not be able to attend this very important seminar I would like to put forth and highlight a few issues through this paper.
For East-West Understanding, and more particularly for the understanding of the East, it is important to appreciate the need for Conservation, Documentation and Research into the Vast Cultural Heritage that the East offers. So one of the focus areas will be to enlist and overcome the bottlenecks in this task and I shall be dealing mainly with the documentation aspect as the other two can be taken as a subset of documentation. While doing so I shall touch upon the contemporary and older Indian Languages, their diversities and their unifying aspects.
Sanskrit is one of the oldest living Languages and all the south-east Asian Languages have emanated from this language. They all have the same Varnamala called the Brahmi group of alphabets. It is estimated that out of the 6800 languages and dialects spoken on this planet, nearly 1652 different languages and many more dialects are spoken in India and they all share this Varnamala as a common heritage. Many of them do not have an independent script but share this same Varnamala. As many as 4 Indian languages ( Bengali, Tamil, Marathi and Telgu) rank among the 50 largest spoken languages all over the world, while Hindi stands at rank 3 after Chinese and English.
The tradition of Sanskrit is said to be the Shruti tradition – that is the language and the knowledge is learnt from spoken words from the mouth of the Guru. Even the Indian classical music is learnt through the Shruti tradition. Scripting is a skill that captures only a small part of this shrut message. Still, first I will consider the issue of scripts.
Presently Indian languages are written in 8 contemporary scripts Malyali, Tamil, Kannad (Telgu), Gujrati, Gurumukhi, Oriya, Bengali (asamiya), and Devnagri. The art of writing was already advanced at the time of Mahabharata. The written texts in Indian subcontinent and South-East Asian countries are by far the world’s largest treasure of written texts. Hence it is important to discuss the problems in documentation of this treasure.
First let us understand what the dimensions in documentation are. In the days of shrut knowledge when the art and science of scripts had not yet developed, paintings, and sculpture, was the method for documentation. Spoken words though preserved in human memory could not be called documentation in the modern sense of the term. Our forefathers developed the skill of writing and many texts came in written form. A very large number of handwritten texts are still available to us in the form of manuscripts. Thereafter came the era of printing. Scholars and dedicated people started putting these texts in printed forms and it was acknowledged as a far better form of Documentation because it allowed multiple copies to be made in a concise and uniform manner.
Today we are in the age of computers -- more technically I should say that we are in the age of Digitization. It allows much better transmission of information, much better study, analysis and comparison and a far better storage. The potential of replication is virtually limitless. Hence all efforts must be made for digitized Documentation. It has four convenient formats -- as pictures, as a written text, as an audio and as a video clip. Each method has its own advantage.
Digitization in picture format is important for our manuscripts. This method involves taking photograph and then storing them as digitized photo. The storage can simultaneously be on the web also. This photographic digitization is important as it gives lot of clues about the authors, the historical and geographical variations in calligraphy practices, and methods used for creating manuscripts. Hence, creation of a National Archive of Manuscripts is our first task. The National Mission for Manuscripts, Delhi has undertaken to do this, but their speed and success will depend upon how the custodians of the manuscripts come forward, and how well the NMM is able to monitor the progress of those technology vendors to whom the task of photographic digitization is being outsourced.
At this stage I would also like to suggest that NMM or at least all of us should acknowledge the efforts of those hundreds of families who preserved and protected these manuscripts through hundreds of years, thus making available the treasure for our generation. There should be felicitations and awards. Secondly, what kind of royalty will be available to those who will share the manuscripts? Most importantly, what is the mechanism of the NMM to ensure that the knowledge of these manuscripts is made available to all, yet the IPR rights remain with those families and with the Indian nation. I am told that the system followed in Sweden regarding their community IPR offers the best protection to their interests. We need to study that system.
I would make a second suggestion by way of brief reminder. Many of us know that we had the system of Yajman or Panda at many pilgrim places. For generations these Yajman families have preserved information about the visitors and their Vamshavali. This is another huge documentation that can throw light on our linguistic heritage.
The second method is digitization in the form of text which becomes available to search engines and is the key for propagation of knowledge. Here we are faced with a major crisis. There are no proper standards developed for docu-digiting our texts. Huge font banks with have been developed by different companies who vow not to let any others be compatible with them. The Govt. owned companies play the same game. They all sell their software at huge prices when the trend all over the world is to provide free software to common users at least to a limited extent. Most of these software are not as per Unicode standards which mean that they can be uploaded on web only with hundreds of inherent problems.
It is a sad commentary that at the GoI level, no ministry, no department and no officer has the mandate to think and plan for all Indian languages as one unified issue. There is DIT (Dept of Information Technology) who disown responsibility about ANY language. The Dept of Rajbhasha has a mandate only for Hindi and the mandates for other languages rest with the respective state govt. where that language is the official language. No state Govt has any say in how the GoI omits to plan for all languages as a one unit. Incidentally, there is absolutely no department and no plans for ensuring computer- software for Sanskrit. Many alphabets used in Sanskrit, especially Vedic texts are not available in computer software. What is available is not easy to handle or compatible with the work done by some other agency in other corner of the country.
Still, one can partly thank developers of Unicode who, on their own, decided to create a standard for contemporary Indian languages (minus Sanskrit). They adopted as base some standard that was partially developed and available with BIS (bureau of Indian Standards). While so doing they also struck a blow. This may have been inadvertent, but was neither understood nor objected to by Indian experts who were attending those meetings of Unicode Consortium on behalf of GoI. The result was that the current Unicode Standard views all the 8 Indian scripts as alien to each other and there is no inter-convertibility among them. Thus a digitization of Sanskrit text of Ramayana in Devnagari cannot be instantaneously converted into Sanskrit text of Ramayana in Bengali or Gujrati. Hence the search engine told through Gujrati to find something on Ramayana will not find or show anything available on the web in other script.
In this regard, 3 aspects must be understood. The facility of instant inter-convertibility was envisaged in the BIS standard and was available in early software developed by CDAC which is a govt. company. But it was not pursued with Unicode-consortium. In future it will prove a great bottleneck to our efforts of looking at the languages in a unified manner and derive benefits there from (including cultural integration). Around the same time, the same separation was proposed for the CJK scripts (Chinese, Japanese and Korean) but the three countries dumped all their political differences and insisted on a single standard for all three scripts. Third aspect is of political will which should be prompted through seminars like this – even today if the political will at the top is exercised we can still approach Unicode Consortium to restore the advantage of instant inter-convertibility and Unified nature of Indian Languages.
I will briefly touch upon the audio-digitization. The facility of such a digitization and storage is available and being used in a big way to create audio-clip banks. But the research aspect has remained completely unattended. Two areas immediately come to mind. How to codify various intonations that are inseparable parts of any Mantra-chanting in our Shrut-tradition? Secondly, it is said that the next-gen computers will not use key-boards but direct speech to carry out instructions to the computers. It is also said that Sanskrit is a very suitable language for the same as it has codified even its Varnamala and many more Dhwani-symbols. A highly dedicated research team must start acting on this issue from the earliest day.
Lastly I urge upon those present here to appreciate the need of creating a National Repository for the literature, folk-literature, dramatics, music, sculptures and motifs available in India and eastern countries through the hundreds of languages and dialects. Their documentation should be as much a concern of western scholars as it should be of Indians and Asians.
Thanks to the organisors for allowing me this presentation.
-- Leena Mehendale

सतीश रावले -- 'मराठी देवनागरी वर्णमालेत सुधारणा करण्याबाबतचा' निर्णय!

'मराठी देवनागरी वर्णमालेत सुधारणा करण्याबाबतचा' निर्णय!
From: satish rawale
Date: 2009/12/10
Subject: 'मराठी देवनागरी वर्णमालेत सुधारणा करण्याबाबतचा' निर्णय!
To: लीना मेहेंदळे
10 डिसेंबर 2009
नमस्कार!
मला मिळालेल्या माहितीनुसार, 'मराठी देवनागरी वर्णमालेत सुधारणा
करण्यासाठी' शासनाने दिनांक- 6 नोव्हेंबर, 2009 रोजी निर्णय प्रसुत केला
आहे. हा 'शासननिर्णय' सामान्य प्रशासन विभागाच्या अपर मुख्य सचिव
श्रीमती, लीना मेहेंदळे यांच्या म्हणजे आपल्या अधिकारकक्षेत घेतला गेलेला
आहे. यास्तव हा पत्र व्यवहार.
संबंधित सुधारणा करण्यासाठी घेतलेल्या राज्यशासनाच्या निर्णयाची प्रत
येथे उपलब्ध आहे...
http://maharashtra.gov.in/data/gr/marathi/2009/11/06/20091106130447001.pdf
परंतु मला स्वत:ला एक मराठी भाषक या नात्याने माझ्या अल्पमती व अल्प
माहीतीनुसार खालील प्रश्न पडत आहेत. मी ते आपल्या समोर ठेवत आहे. त्यावर
आपले विचार व माहिती कळवण्याची कृपा करावी.
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ह्या निर्णया मध्ये खालील बाबींच्या माहीतीची पुर्तता करण्यात आलेली नाही.-
1) शासन संस्थेने कोणत्या समितीकडे, संस्थेकडे, व्यक्तींकडे अशा
संदर्भातील 'अहवाल मागविला' होता? त्यांची नावे काय?
2) शासकिय संस्थेने कोणत्या दिवशी, कोणत्या नावाची, कोणाच्या
अध्यक्षतेखालील समिती स्थापन केली होती? ह्या समिती मध्ये लिपीतद्न्य,
भाषातद्न्य, व्याकरणाचे जाणकार, संगणक व 'लेखन-मुद्रण विषया' तील तद्न्य,
तत्वद्न्य यांचा सामावेश करण्यात आला होता का?
3) कळफलकामध्ये एकरूपता ('स्वरूपात एकवाक्यता') आणण्यासाठी कोणते निर्णय
घेण्यात आले? म्हणजे, कळफलकाच्या कुठल्या बटनाला कोणता वर्ण राखून
ठेवायचा? व तसे केल्याने टंकनकलेच्या मदतीने 'वेगाने व विविधांगी काम
होणे' कसे शक्य होणार? हे सांगितलेले नाही.
4) मराठी साठीची आतापर्यंत वापरात असलेली बरीच सॉफ्टवेअर 'युनिकोड डाटा
एनकोडींग' च्या प्रसाराने कुचकामी झालेली आहेत. तसे असताना आता विविध
सॉफ्टवेअर मध्ये एकरूपता ('तांत्रिक व व्याकरणिक स्तरावरील एकवाक्यता')
आणण्या बाबत चे काम का बरे विचारात घेतले? उद्या युनिकोड पेक्षा
अद्ययावत नवे डाटा एनकोडींग तंत्रद्न्यान प्रचारात आले तर मराठी भाषेतील लेखन-मुद्रणाला
कोणत्या समस्या भेडसावू शकतात? हे विचारात घेतले गेले आहे का?
5) परिशिष्ठ सहा व सात नुसार, (उद्याच्या पिढीसाठी) 'शालेय स्तरासाठीची
व्यंजने' व 'सर्वसाधारण (जनतेच्या) वापराच्या व्यंजने' यांमध्ये तफावत का
ठेवण्यात आलेली आहे? त्या मागची कारण-मिमांसा काय?
- सतीश रावले
Reply -- Leena Mehendale
3:22 PM 8 मार्च 2011
या कामाचे 2 भाग पडतात. पहिला निव्वळ वर्णक्रमाशी निगडित. त्यासाठी 8-10 वर्षांपूर्वी केलेल्या कमिटीत राज्य मराठी विकास संस्था व महाराष्ट्र साहित्य परिषद, यांनी पुढाकार घेतला. कळफलक हा त्यांचा विषय नव्हता ( त्या काळी तो सीडॅकशिवाय इतरांना समजतही नव्हता. आजही बहुधा नाही) सीडॅकही या विषयात फारसा रस घेत नाहीत असे माझे मत आहे. पण त्यावेळी त्यांनी वर्णक्रमाबाबत आग्रह धरला होता व कमिटीच्या कामकाजात सहभागही असेल. 2009 मधे हा विषय माझ्याकडे आल्यावर आम्ही प्रयत्नपूर्वक कमिटी रिपोर्टबाबत लहानमोठ्या मुद्द्यांची तड लावून हा शासन- निर्णय निर्गमित केला. हेतु हा कि आता डिक्शनरीसारखे ग्रंथ अंतर्जालावर टाकून स्पेलचेकसाठी उपलब्ध होतील, तसे कोणत्याही प्रकारची वर्णक्रम आधारित यादी करतांना त्यांतील क्रमामधे एकवाक्यता राहील.
आता कलपाटीबद्दल बोलायचे तर मी इनस्क्रिप्ट कळपाटी वापरते, कारण ती खूप सोपी आहे व युनीकोड स्टॅण्डर्डमधे मान्यता पावलेली आहे. सीडॅकनेच ही तयार केली व आता तिचे खच्चीकरण करत आहेत, त्याऐवजी ते रोमन फोनेटिकचा प्रचार करतात. त्यालाही युनीकोड स्टॅण्डर्डमधे मान्यता आहे.
इनस्क्रिप्टला युनीकोड स्टॅण्डर्डमधे मान्यता आहे म्हणजे सगळे प्रश्न संपत नाहीत, फक्त प्रश्न क्रमांक 1 सुटला तो म्हणजे मराठी भाषा अंतर्जालावर जाऊ शकण्याचा. कृपया ही लिंक वाचावी. त्यानंतर आपण पुढे बोलू.
http://bhasha-hindi.blogspot.com/2009/02/blog-post.html
http://anu-vigyan.blogspot.com/2009/09/blog-post.html

मंगलवार, 1 मार्च 2011

बेंगळूरू "जागतिक मराठी दिवस"

* जागतिक मराठी दिवस *
कविवर्य कुसुमाग्रजांचा २७ फेब्रुवारी हा जन्मदिवस "जागतिक मराठी दिवस" म्हणून
सर्वत्र साजरा करण्यात येतो .
बेंगळूरू येथील प्रकृती प्रतिष्ठान, या पर्यावरण समूहाचे प्रमुख समन्वयक श्री
धनंजय जोग यांनी महाराष्ट्र मण्डळ,बेंगळूरू यांचे सहाय्याने मण्डळाच्या
सभागृहात "जागतिक मराठी दिवस" सबंधी कार्यक्रम आयोजित केला होता. विंग कमाण्डर
वसंतराव देशमुख हे कार्यक्रमाचे प्रमुख अतिथी होते.महा.मंडळाचे अध्यक्ष श्री
राजीव पोतनीस यांचेसह सुमारे पंचवीस साहित्यप्रेमी मण्डळी कार्यक्रमास आवर्जून
उपस्थित राहिली होती
प्रथम कविवर्य कुसुमाग्रजांच्या भावचित्रास प्रमुख पाहुण्यांचे हस्ते पुष्पहार
घालण्यात आला. श्रीमती रेखा नाईक यांनी गायिलेल्या कुसुमाग्रजांच्या एका
कवितेने कार्यक्रम सुरु झाला. श्री धनंजय जोग यांनी जागतिक मराठी दिवसाचे महत्व
स्पष्ट केले तसेच हा कार्यक्रम आयोजित करण्याविषयीच्या आवश्यकतेबद्दलही त्यांनी
आपले विचार व्यक्त केले .
प्रमुख अतिथी श्री देशमुख यांचे "मराठी तसेच इतर राज्यभाषा वाचवा" या विषयावर
व्याख्यान झाले.अत्यंत मार्मिकपणे त्यांनी आपले परखड विचार व्यक्त करताना असे
सांगितले की आज महाराष्ट्राची मराठी तसेच कर्नाटकाची क्न्नड याप्रमाणे प्रत्येक
राज्याच्या राज्यभाषेचे संरक्षण तसेच संवर्धन होणे अगत्याचे आहे. प्रत्येक
राज्यभाषेला ख्ररा धोका हिन्दीचा आहे. हिन्दी आपली राष्ट्रभाषा नसून ती
भारतातल्या काही राज्यांची राज्यभाषा आहे. प्रत्येक राज्यात त्या त्या
राज्यभाषेचे सार्वभौमत्व अबाधित राहणे आवश्यक आहे अन्यथा हिन्दीच्या निष्कारण व
वेगाने होत असणा~या वाढत्या वापराने राज्यभाषा आपले अस्तित्वच गमावतील असा
इशारा देऊन श्री देशमुख म्हणाले की प्रत्येक राज्यातील नागरिकाने आपल्या
राज्यभाषेला मातृवत् मानून, इतर भाषांच्या होणा~या अतिक्रमणापासून तिचे
प्राणपणाने संरक्षण करायला हवे.व्याख्यानाने भारावून गेलेल्या काही श्रोत्यांनी
विचारलेल्या प्रश्नांना श्री देशमुख यांनी समर्पक उत्तरे दिली.नंतर श्री सुरेश
उदास यांनी मराठीच्या अस्मितेविषयी सादर केलेल्या स्वरचित कवितेस रसिकांची
चांगली दाद मिळाली. श्री कौशल इनामदार मुंबई यांच्या संकल्पनेने तयार करण्यात
आलेली कवी सुरेश भट यांच्या कवितेची ध्वनिमुद्रिका उपस्थित साहित्यप्रेमी
श्रोत्यांना ऐकवण्यात आली.
कार्यक्रमाच्या अखेरी श्री धनंजय जोग यांनी प्रमुख पाहुण्यांचे तसेच
श्रोतृवृंदाचे आभार मानले. अशा रीतीने "जागतिक मराठी दिवस" हा कार्यक्रम संपन्न
झाला .

********* इनस्क्रिप्ट मराठी व हिन्दी Inscript presentation

मराठी प्रेझेंटेशन

हिन्दी प्रेझेंटेशन

http://www.yunikodatunmarathi.blogspot.in/2010/12/blog-post.html -- Marathi by sushant devlekar