Bengali, our mother tongue, for the honor of which language, martyrs risked their lives. The language movement of Bangladesh taught the world to think anew. When the language movement is mentioned, the name of Barak Valley of our country also comes up in a row. India is a meeting place of various languages and opinions; the number of languages recognized by the constitution is 22. Our minority also has 40 languages. Our country is teaching different countries of the world to think anew through language-technology with the many mother tongues spread in different parts of the country. The global movement is developing using technology as a tool.
the Bangladesh Computer Council (BCC), a government organization in Bangladesh, has been playing an important role in the development of Bengali keyboards, OCR software and other language-technology tools. On International Mother Language Day, this organization under the ICT Division of the government opened three software based on Bengali language with artificial intelligence on Wednesday. These are Bengali Text to Speech ‘Uchcharon’, Bengali Speech to Text ‘Kotha’ and Bengali OCR ‘Barno’. The name of the new Bengali font is ‘Purna‘. This software has been developed through the ‘Enrichment of Bengali Language in Information Technology through Research and Development (1st Revised)’ project implemented by the Bangladesh Computer Council under the Information and Communication Technology Division of the Government of Bangladesh. Now let’s get acquainted with these technology-friendly services.
Bangla Text to Speech- Uchcharon
The technology to convert text into spoken words by machine is called TTS or Text to Speech application. TTS can read text in documents, websites, screen windows. At the same time, it can be read aloud to the visually impaired. The Uchcharon TTS software made by us has female and male voice as well. Currently the software can be used from this address.
Bangla Speech to Text- Kotha
Voice typing or ‘speech to text’ is the technology of writing on the computer through oral speech. The Bengali voice typing software developed by us is called ‘Kotha’. It can convert spoken Bengali words to text in standard clear and quiet environments. The final version of the software can record Bengali major punctuation marks. The software can be used from this address as a web application from a browser. There is also an opportunity to use this voice typing service through the Keyboard Android app developed by the project.
Bangla OCR- Barna
OCR converts un-editable computer text into editable text. OCR is converting text in PDF or JPEG files to editable text. Our built-in font OCRT converts Bengali text into text similar to composed text. In other words, if a document is photographed or scanned and OCRed, it becomes composite. Barna OCRT has several features. It can OCR computer composed documents especially government letters, circulars. Through this, tables, common English words and names of institutions, logos of government institutions can be identified. The application can also OCR old typewriter documents and letterpress books. The software can be used as a web application by entering this address from any browser.
Bangla Font- Purna
Purna Font is a unique plain Bengali Unicode font. It was designed and developed after identifying font related issues. It includes all the typographical features required in Bengali publications. At the same time, this font is also properly expressing the characteristics of Bengali language. In addition to institutional use, this font is suitable for print and web use. The font contains all necessary glyphs including vowels, consonants, punctuation, English letters, mathematical symbols, Assamese unique set, Indic-Bangla supporting glyphs, homographs, popular icons/logos. etc. The font is in some features. For example, distinct visual form, multiple allographs, height equivalent to Latin glyphs, standard line spacing and size and optimized glyph numbering, combination of both transparent and traditional glyphs, etc. The font has a bold, italic variant in addition to the normal version. You can download the font by clicking here.
According to sources, earlier, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina launched the app Bhinti to check the correctness of Bengali spelling and express emotions. BCC will launch an app and gesture software for minorities within this year. 37 percent of the two projects have already been completed. It is said that the implementation of this project has been slow in determining the national standards in these cases.
Apart from BCC, another organization of Bangladesh ‘Centre for Research on Bangla Language Processing’ (CRBLP) is a Bengali part-of-speech tagger, named-entity-recognition and attitude indicator. sentiment analyzer) etc. have developed various tools. Besides, the International Center for Computer Resources and Development (ICCRD), a US-based organization (involved in developing Bengali OCR software) and the Bangladesh Association of Software and Information Services (BASIS) have played important roles in the development of Bengali language-based technology.
And Bangladesh Internet Governance Forum (BIGF) is working behind all this. In collaboration with Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), BIGF contributed to the acquisition of the dot Bangla top level domain in 2009-2016 to ensure the use of Bengali characters in the cyber world with the global victory of the Bengali language in technology. In 2016-2020, Bengali LGR document creation and dot bangla and working for universal acceptance of Bangla font in email IDs. The organization has already held a caucus for second level domain in Bengali.