Mayank's Blog

Have you ever got your ears, nose or throat examined through a दूरबीन (Telescope)? The more important question is whether you want to see a doctor who claims to do exactly the same! I had the pleasure of meeting such a doctor whose clinic proudly proclaimed the following: Looking at the poster, I was surprised as well as disturbed to know how little we know about our national language. Oh wait a minute, Hindi is not our national language but the official language. There is no national language of India. No wonder, we have people displaying such gems in their mastery of the language.

Like all of us, I too use Google Talk client to chat with my friends and family. Yesterday while chatting, I wished I could chat in Hindi the way we do in Blogger, Orkut or other Google sites. And what if we could type in Hindi (or other regional languages) on any site, the same way. Well, Google has again come to the rescue! Google Talk can help you with automatic, quick transliterations, converting the Roman characters that you type into your chat to Indic characters. Transliteration lets you type Indic words phonetically in English script and still have them appear in their correct alphabet. Please note that this is not the same as translation. The sound of the words are converted from one alphabet to the other, not their meaning. To use this, you will have to use a Transliteration bot. To use a bot, add it to your Friends list and send it the message you want transliterated. For example, if you send "Namaste" to en2hi.translit@bot.talk.google.com (English to Hindi), it...