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: ravi@modlingua.com
A Glance at Languages of India
 As per Census 1961 count- 1652 mother tongues
belonging to five different language families. Apart from
them 527 mother tongues were considered unclassifiable
at that time.
 As per Census 2001 count -1635 mother tongues were
classified as 1635 rationalized mother tongues and 1957
names which were treated as ‘unclassified’ and relegated
to the ‘other’ mother tongue category.
 The 1635 rationalized mother tongues were further
classified into 234 mother tongues and grouped under
122 languages.
A Glance at Languages of India
122 languages have been further grouped under
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Indo-European: 24 languages, with a total population of
76.89%, divided into Indo-Aryan (21), Iranian (2) and
Germanic (1);
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Dravidian: 17 languages, with a total population of 20.82%;
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Austro-Asiatic: 14 languages, with a total population of 1.11%;
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Tibeto-Burman: 66 languages with a total population of
0.01%;
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Semito-Hermitic: 1 language, with a total population of 0.01%.
A Glance at Languages of India
A Glance at Languages of India
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 the
population of the country and the remaining 3.44% of the
population speak the rest of the languages.
A Legacy of Multi-lingualism
 Ancient writers used to switch between Pali, Sanskrit,
Tamil and Ardhmagadhi.
 During medieval period, many scholars had mastered
Sanskrit, Persian and Arabic.
 Throughout the history, scholars have been concerned
about use of simple language to reach common mass in
their local languages, on the other hand languages of the
scholars have been different than those for common
mass.
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 multilingual
constitute some 20% of the total population.
 Mobility between different states within India makes it
mandatory to be multi-lingual.
A Legacy of Recorded Bilingualism
 “One of the significant features of Indian bilingualism is
that it is complementary. For example, an individual may
use a particular language at home, another in the
neighborhood and the bazaar, and still another in certain
formal domains such as education, administration, and
the like”. (J.C. Sharma)
Language Policies in India
 The Constitution of India 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 to
include Sindhi, at another time to include Konkani,
Manipuri and Nepali.
 and most recent one to include Bodo, Santhali, Maithili
and Dogri. The 100th Constitutional Amendment which
added these four languages into the Eighth Schedule was
supported by all the 338 members present in the
Parliament.
 It has been stated that claims of 33 more languages for
inclusion are under consideration.
Language Policies in India
 It is worth mentioning the encouraging reports by
UNESCO that has appreciated India’s stand on
"maintaining linguistic diversity” ... (when) about half of
the approximately 6000 languages spoken in the world
are under threat, seriously endangered or dying, "it does
appreciate that "India has maintained its extensive and
well-catalogued linguistic diversity".
Digital Divide
 It is interesting to note that though the Information
Technology boom has brought a revolution to India and
Indian computer wizards are making waves in the Silicon
Valley, 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 language
has 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 in
21st Century India.
Digital Divide
 Computer penetration in India is estimated to be 7.5 per
1000 people but at the same time, the internet is able to
reach only about one percent of the total population of
the country.
Government Initiatives
 The Technology Development for Indian Languages
(TDIL) is the initiative of the Ministry of Communication
and Information Technology. TDIL has been mandated to
bridge the digital divide by developing IT tools in local
languages in India.
 Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (CDAC)
is government of India run organization involved in
research and development of computers, known of
development of super computers
Role of TDIL and CDAC
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Translation Support System
GyanNidhi
Dware Dware Gyan Sampada - Mobile Digital Library
Chitraksharika
Lekhika
On-Line Hindi Vishwakosh
On Line IT Terminology
Swarnakriti
Private Initiative
 In addition, many private players including Indian and
multinational giants like Microsoft, IBM, Infosys, Wipro,
TCS, Reliance, Airtel, Vodafone etc. are developing
software and applications in Indian languages.
 Needless to say, a major search engine like Google has
already started offering search possibilities in Bengali,
Hindi, Marathi, Tamil and Telugu, and there are a series
of other major players eyeing Indian localization
markets.
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 of IT, the Ministry of
Communications and Information Technology
(Government of India), has been instrumental in funding
these projects.
 Since the mid and late 90’s, a few more projects have
been initiated—at IIT (Bombay), IIT (Hyderabad), AUKBC Centre (Chennai) and the Jadavpur University
(Kolkata).
CAT Tools
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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
CAT Tools – Private Initiative
 English-Hindi Statistical MT - IBM
 BhashaIndia - Microsoft
Translation and localization market
 World
Translation and localization market
India
 The Nasscom-Deloitte study on Indian IT Industry:
Impacting the Economy and Society says the IT/ITES
industry's contribution to the country's GDP has
increased to a share of 5.2 percent in 2007, as against
1.2 percent in 1998.
 And with a growth of 27 per cent in 2007, in 2008, the
Indian ITES market is set to cross US$ 25.43 billion.
Translation and Localization Market - India
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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 we
take India's share as 5% of the world market, currently Indian language market
size may be taken at approx. value of $500 millions which may be summed, in
terms of activities, as follows:
SWOT Analysis
Strenght
 Presence of IT giants, IT service providers and the BPO
boom create a high demand for Language Professionals.
Agencies, Institutions / Universities / Diplomatic
Missions, Corporate houses, Government bodies, BPOs,
Publishing Houses, E-books, Software companies, etc. all
use the services of Language Professionals in a big way.
SWOT Analysis
Weakness
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
SWOT Analysis
Opportunities
 Opportunities abound in India, one of the largest
markets in the world, not only for Indian languages
(Hindi, Bengali, Telugu, Tamil, Marathi, Urdu, Gujarati,
etc.) but rather for all languages in combination with
English as well.
SWOT Analysis
Threat
 Indian Translators involved in foreign language
translation activities face relatively more challenges than
their counterparts involved in translating Indian
languages.
 Global competition is a major factor. This fairly unique
situation of an Asian country working extensively with
foreign languages makes the foreign language Indian
translator vulnerable to hostility not only from the
“traditional” opponents of “outsourced” work but, more
disturbingly, from colleagues within the nation who feel
that it is only their work which has “legitimacy”.
Role of Indian Translators Association
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With newly formed National Translation Mission by Government
of India, ITAINDIA shall play a major role, acting as a
communicator between government and translation community
of India.
Assist in joint ventures
Unite translators
Create awareness
Network with national and international bodies and forums
Actively participate in language and translation related
activities at national level as well as international level
Fight for the cause of translators community of India as well as
world in general
End note
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The unique cultural diversity of the Language and Translation
Industry of India thus provides rich prospects for mutually
enriching collaborations across the globe.
Accustomed to economize as a philosophy of life, the Indian
translation industry preserves age old humanistic Asian values
in an age of cut throat competition, thus bringing a two-fold
benefit in an era of soaring prices and plummeting human
relations.
Even with all these valiant endeavors, a lot still remains to be
done by individuals and companies, as well as by the
government, to promote this nascent industry and incorporate
the required changes, to adapt and upgrade skills and to use
new technologies
but the baseline is set, and I am sure the existing synergy will
translate into great opportunities for those who look towards
India as potential investment destination.
THANKS ! DHANYAVAD !
For comments write to:
Ravi Kumar, President
Indian Translators Association
K-5/B, Lower Ground Floor, Kalkaji
New Delhi –110019, India
Tel: +91-11-26291676 Telefax: +91-11-41675530
E-mail: info@itaindia.org Web: www.itaindia.org