Dear All, A dream come true - Google Indic Keyboard now allows you to type messages, update on social networks or compose emails in Assamese on your Android phone. Pls check: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ig2_2Cfn6oA&feature=youtu.be> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ig2_2Cfn6oA&feature=youtu.be
Rasika, one of our members of the E-Jonakijug team informed me the following: Quote: The moment I saw this, I thought about you. Finally, this had to happen and yet this is only the beginning. We should look at building awareness on this so more and more Assamese content comes to life in the internet. I have started this at home with my parents who have started writing in Assamese and its a dream to have more and more people join the bandwagon From: rasika saikia Sent: dinsdag 24 november 2015 3:25 To: Ankur Bora; Wahid Saleh; Zing Manjit Subject: Google Indic Keyboard please <https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.android.apps.inputmethod.hindi> use and do share feedback. Unquote: Walking down the memory lane I remember that in a discussion about the release of the magazine Jeeven, on 12th March 2010, Manoj Das of Delhi wrote to me “Google has not yet recognized Assamese as a language in their options. I don't know whether you noticed! Is it not odd that they listed Nagamese as an option, but not a major language like Assamese spoken by 30 million people? I wrote to Google but there was no reply. Could you also take up the issue?” The first observation of Manoj is correct and the second is not. In the meantime in one of his mails Sureshranjan mentioned to me that even if Google includes Assamese language in their search engine, it will be difficult to access the Internet contents in Assamese. There are not many sites with contents in Assamese. It gave me food for thought. On 6th of April 2010, I circulated amongst our e-mail group a mail with some ideas. The subject of the mail was “Assamese as an internet search language and Assamese content on Internet”. Satyajit picked it up and came with a few suggestions. Ankur, Amitav, Manjit, Satyakam, Pallav, Sureshranjan and Rashika joined the group followed by Bikram <https://www.facebook.com/bikram98?fref=ts> , Sushanta, Pankaj <https://www.facebook.com/pankaj.barah> , Banajit <https://www.facebook.com/banajitpathak> , and many others. During the discussions that followed it was pointed out that the right approach would be to use Unicode to write Assamese contents. So it was decided to concentrate in the use of Unicode and also to explore other possibilities like use of OCR. "Jonaki marked the dawn of romanticism in Assamese literature". This interaction was the beginning of an initiative to increase the Assamese contents on the web. At Satyajit's suggestion the initiative was named E-Jonakijug. So far known it was the first concentrated effort by a group to increase the Assamese content on the net and to support the use of Assamese Unicode fonts. The members of the group were (are) based in different countries of the world. In a later stage I came to know that researcher Dr. Satyakam Phukan <https://drsatyakamphukan.files.wordpress.com/2011/10/cm_memo-3.pdf> , Pastor Azizul Haque <https://www.facebook.com/azizul.haque.94?fref=ts> and, Dr. Rabin Deka were also active contacting government officials as well as Unicode with their proposal to get a separate Unicode slot for the Assamese script. Bikram with his volunteers of Xobdo organisation contributed in several fronts. Today Xobdo is a unique example of what a dedicated, motivated and energised group of youth could deliver. At that time I did not know that my great uncle Abdul Majid was an integral part of the Junakijug of the Assamese literary scene in Calcutta. As a young student in Calcutta, along with his compatriot Ghanashyam Baruah, he was one of the founders of the Assam Social Literary Club a literary organisations for the development of Assamese language and literature. Later the Club became the Asomiya Bhasha Unnatti Sadhani Sabha. This association became the inspiration for the formation of Asom Sahitya Sabha. Some 100+ years later I followed his footsteps seeking ways to enrich the Assamese content on the web. Looking back we can say that in the period behind us, we contributed our part in generating awareness, awareness to increase the Assamese contents on the net. Unicode became a common word and serious discussion about use of Unicode, position of Assamese language is going on. Digital as well print media is covering this subject. When we started there was Ramdhenu software for DTP use by the publishers. It was not in Unicode. Newspapers were uploaded as image and it was not possible to serach the contents. In spite of best effort of Pallav and others we could not get the Ramdhenu translator ready for Unicode. The progress was blocked by not being able to get the right solution for translation of Juktakhars. Luckily Mr. Tridip Barua <http://www.telegraphindia.com/1120611/jsp/northeast/story_15594299.jsp#.VlYxZnarSM9> , the developer of the Ramdhenu software announced that they are developing a new font – Ramdhenu to switch over to Unicode. Being an Arts graduate he contributed something which had great impact on the Assamese digital (DTP) world. Different groups, from different places fought their own battles in their on way and contributed to get a slot for the Assamese script in the Unicode family. After all these years there is light at the end of the tunnel. Francis of Assisi said: Start by doing what's necessary; then do what's possible; and suddenly you are doing the impossible. The dedicated volunteers were doing what was possible. The impossible is now going to happen. Assamese script is going to get its rightful place within the Unicode family: Unicode hope for Assam script <http://www.telegraphindia.com/1151118/jsp/northeast/story_53681.jsp#.VlcsCXarSM8> RAJIV KONWAR Guwahati, Nov. 17: A six-member committee, constituted by the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS), today recommended giving a separate slot to Assamese script in the US-based Unicode Consortium. The committee was constituted to find a solution to the controversy regarding not allotting a separate slot to Assamese script and identifying it as another form of Bengali script internationally by the Consortium. It was more than five years ago we took the initiative. Luckily others carried the torch further. We have to wait and see when it is going to be official. The unfinished task: Google Input Tools on Windows (Assamese is not yet recognised) Google Input Tools for Windows is currently available for 22 different languages: Amharic, Arabic, Bengali, Persian, Greek, Gujarati, Hebrew, Hindi, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Nepali, Oriya, Punjabi, Russian, Sanskrit, Serbian, Sinhala, Tamil, Telugu, Tigrinya and Urdu, But in Assamese. Greetings, Wahid (da) . _______________________________________________ assam mailing list [email protected] http://assamnet.org/mailman/listinfo/assam_assamnet.org
