Computer literacy and SARAL scripts

Languages and machines
The importance of machines for writing language has been increasing ever since the introduction of typewriters and printing machines. Writing any language with the help of a machine is faster and makes its reading easy. The machines are responsible for clear and cheaper production of printed material in different languages for wide circulation throughout the world.
The ordinary machines used for typing and printing can be easily manipulated to accept any shape or sequence of symbols used for writing a script on a surface. The use of computers has, however, introduced new elements of handling symbols for languages through electronic processing. All symbols which are fed into computers for processing get converted into binary code. After processing, they are re converted into different shapes for output. The processing inside the computer is based on rational principles. It would be difficult to process scripts or languages which are not compatible with the code for characters commonly used in the central processing unit of the computer.
The processing in computers at present is based on ASCII code which has the Roman alphabet as the main units for text manipulation. It is, therefore, easier to process languages which are written in Roman script compared to those written in other scripts. Word processing programs for Roman characters are in abundance in the market. Romanaagarii can utilize any word processing program valid for English.
The increase in the processing speed of computers and their capacity to handle very large quantity of information has created the possibility and desirability of faster input of languages. This can be done either through the scanning process or oral input. While scanning process is now common for texts written in Roman characters, technology for voice input has not yet fully developed. saral hindI script being based on rational principle of sound symbol correspondence, and its characters being in Roman script, has the possibility of accepting input through scanning and may also facilitate oral input through voice recognition.

Computers and writing systems
Recent researches in the field of cognitive psychology have revealed that there has been a shift of emphasis even in educational practice as far as writing is concerned. In the 1920s the emphasis was on handwriting skills, in the 1950s it was on the grammatical quality of the written products, and at present, it is on the process of writing and knowing the way how to arrive at the end product.
The computer has introduced significant changes in the process of writing. A computer does not require the conventional method or instrument to make a mark on a surface. It needs only the skill to recognize symbols on a keyboard so as to produce similar symbols on the screen. If some voice recognition device is added to the computer, the keyboard may also be dispensed with.
The transformation of writing after the advent of computers could be compared to the transformations that took place in different societies after introduction of script to convert the spoken words into writing. However, in some ways the changes brought about by computers during the past fifty years are more startling than the changes brought about by written languages during the past five thousand years. Computers have introduced a qualitative change in the technique and art of writing. This technique can be utilized for the promotion of literacy.

Computers and literacy
Although promotion of literacy is not dependent upon computers, they can be of great assistance in this task. The following points highlight the beneficial impact of computers on promotion of literacy:
1. Through interactive programs on computers, learning can be facilitated even for those who are slow. Computers have infinite patience and learning through them would be friendlier and less fearful.
2. They are accessible to people in remote areas in which human beings may not easily reach and stay for long to teach reading and writing. Battery operated computers may be used at places where electricity is not available or the availability is precarious. Computers also reduce dependency on schools.
3. With their increased memory, computers can teach a variety of subjects and cover more areas than a human teacher. The capacity, speed and accuracy of computers enable a person to achieve many things in a short time which would be difficult through human efforts. Along with the teaching of languages, computers could also be used to produce reading material for learning the languages.
4. With the help of uniform script and suitable programs, computers can promote communication among different parts of the world. They can be helpful in sending reading material for promotion of literacy from one place to another on global basis.
5. As an aid to intellectual pursuits, computers support and promote creativity. By doing the routine, dull and repetitive jobs, computers release the mind for other useful things. They also accelerate the learning process.
6. Computers can be helpful in teaching handicapped people. There are possibilities of computers being operated by blind or dumb people through special programs.

Computer literacy
Apart from being an aid to promote literacy, computers themselves deserve to be known, understood and used. Computer literacy in modern times is becoming as important as language literacy. It is being realized that in the 21st century, a person who is ignorant about computers, would be considered illiterate.
Although computer literacy is ambiguous and has not been explained as precisely as language literacy, its general goals are considered to be: some knowledge of computers and their technology; the ability to use a few standard types of software; some knowledge of computer applications and their use in a variety of contexts; some knowledge or understanding of the current and future impact of computers on society; and the ability to write some simple computer programs.
The goals of computer literacy would differ from country to country and depend upon the existing resources and interest. What is needed is the recognition of computers as an important factor in the living and working environment of the modern times and awareness of their impact on technology, culture and thinking. In the worlds of Bill Gates: "We stand at the brink of another revolution. This one will involve unprecedentedly inexpensive communication; all computers will join together to communicate with us and for us. Interconnected globally, they will form a network, which is being called the information highway. A direct precursor is the present Internet, which is a group of computers joined and exchanging information using current technology."

Computer literacy for India
Despite widespread illiteracy in India, there is awareness of modern science and technology developments in academic, official and business circles. Due to lack of resources, however, computers have had limited impact in the country. Their use is now on the increase. There are concerted efforts in some places even to compete with other countries in hardware and software production.
In his address to the nation on the eve of 58th Independence Day (14 August, 2004), The President of India highlighted the concept of Education for Dignity of Human life and emphasized Technology Enhanced Education in the country. He stated: “Constraints of time and space together with the rapid obsolescence of knowledge in some areas of science and technology, have created a huge demand for different courses from different institutions in the distance mode. There is a need for a working digital library system that alone can, in the long run, provide the kind of access required for a Knowledge Society. Technology Enhanced Learning is a solution. It attempts to exploit the rapid developments in Information and Communication Technology. As the communications band-width continues to increase and the cost of computer power continues to drop, Technology Enhanced Learning will become an economically viable solution. Virtual classrooms of the future will have students from many locations taught by a team of geographically distributed Instructors through tele-education delivery system.”

Romanaagarii and SARAL Scripts
SARAL means simple, alphabetic, rational approach to literacy. To understand SARAL Scripts, we should understand Romanaagarii script which is an attempt to combine the printing advantages of Roman characters and phonetic merits of Devanagari script. Romanaagarii is based on the principle of one sound and one symbol correspondence. Romanaagarii principle can be adopted to represent any number of symbols required to write any spoken language. However, the exact number of letters would depend on the total number of sounds used in a language. Some sounds not represented by a single letter would be represented by two or more letters placed together in a systematic way.
Romanaagarii script has five basic short vowels [a], [i], [u], [e], and [o] and corresponding five long vowels [aa], [ii], [uu], [ee], and [oo]. Essentially, these vowels are commonly used in most languages of the world. There may be some differences of accent but most vowel sounds could be covered by these ten basic vowels. As in Devanagari script, the vowels in Romanaagarii script are to be learnt separately because they have special significance from a phonetic point of view.
Consonants in Romanaagarii script are similar to English consonants. Some consonants of the English alphabet having more than one sound are used for only one specific sound. Some sounds not represented by any letter in the English alphabet are represented by combination of more than one letters or through use of a diacritical mark. It is not considered necessary to use the capital letters. The use of capital letters, however, for different purposes, could be determined by the type of text used. To make consonant phonemes, vowel [a] is added to the basic grapheme. This system of writing Devanagari phonemes in Roman letters is Romanaagarii! The phonemes of Romanaagarii would be as follows:

a/ /aa/ /i/ /ii/ /u/ /uu/
/e/ /ee/ /o/ /oo/ /m’/ /h’/
/ka/ /kha/ /ga/ /gha/ /m’a/
/ca/ /cha/ /ja/ /jha/ /m’a/
/t’a/ /t’ha/ /d’a/ /d’ha/ /n’a/
/ta/ /tha/ /da/ /dha/ /na/
/pa/ /pha/ /ba/ /bha/ /ma/
/ya/ /ra/ /la/ /va/ /sha/ /s’a/ /sa/ /ha/
/‘a/ /k’a/ /k’ha/ /g’a/ /r’a/ /r’ha/ /za/ /fa/ /v’a/

Romanaagarii to SARAL Roman
ASCII (American Standard Code for Information Interchange) used in computers is character encoding based on the Roman/English alphabet. ASCII (English) characters used in computers are as follows:

To use ASCII for the phonemes of Romanaagarii, the capital letters are substituted by phonemes made of more than one Roman characters. The inherent vowel [a] is excluded. We call the new fonts based on Romanaagarii as SARAL Roman fonts and the script as SARAL Roman script.
ASCII for SARAL Roman would be different from the ASCII for Romanaagarii English. In the ASCII for SARAL Roman, the phoneme made of more than one character, is considered as one single symbol and the fonts are made accordingly. For example, [kh] in Romanaagarii requires two strokes on keyboard but in SARAL Roman, it will require only one stroke.

Romanaagarii uses the fonts commonly used in English, but SARAL Roman uses the fonts specially made for it. It may be noted that there is no difference in the appearance of Romanaagarii and SARAL Roman except the use of [x]. In SARAL Roman, [x] is there but almost invisible. SARAL Roman ASCII and fonts are as follows:

SARAL Ingles
A variation of SARAL Roman is SARAL Ingles (phonetic spelling of English in Romanaagarii like ingles in Spanish) in which the text is written as suggested by the International Alphabet of Sanskrit Transliteration (IAST). It is based on a standard established by the Congress of Orientalists at Athens in 1912. Those who are familiar with Sanskrit and Urdu texts (with dots below the letters) may like this format. SARAL Ingles ASCII and fonts are as follows:

SARAL Roman to SARAL Hindi
To use the SARAL Roman ASCII format for Devanagari or Hindi will be easy because all the phoneme bases and vowel modifiers are common. However, we have to alphabetize the Devanagari writing symbols and convert the phonemes (Akshar) into graphemes (Varn’a). To make Devanagari script alphabetic like Roman script, we do the following:
-Use only one vowel base and twelve vowel modifiers;
-Make the vowel modifier [i] to follow the base like other vowel modifiers; and
-Remove the line over consonants to make them alphabetic graphemes from phonemic graphemes.
These measures are based on the suggestions of Hindi scholars and linguists. The set of Hindi alphabet symbols will have 55 characters or graphemes as follows:

We arrange these symbols in the ASCII to make SARAL Hindi fonts on the pattern of SARAL Roman. SARAL Hindi characters in the format of ASCII will be as follows:

The technique of SARAL Hindi can be applied to any script provided it is alphabetized, made phonetic, based on phonemes and set in ASCII like SARAL Roman. What has been done for Hindi, can be done for Urdu, Gujarati, Panjabi etc. In case of Urdu, however, the difference will be that the text will be written from right to left instead of left to right.

SARAL Urdu alphabet will be as follows:

SARAL Urdu characters/fonts in the format of ASCII will be as follows:

SARAL Gujarati alphabet will be as follows:

SARAL Gujarati characters/fonts in the format of ASCII will be as follows:

SARAL Panjabi alphabet will be as follows:

SARAL Panjabi characters/fonts in the format of ASCII will be as follows:

More information on Romanaagarii and SARAL Scripts may be seen in the article “Magic of Romanaagarii and SARAL alphabet”.

Computers and SARAL scripts
All languages of India are phoneme based. For learning to read and write languages of India one has to familiarize oneself with the phonemes usually given in tabular form called barakhari. The combination of vowel base and consonant bases with vowel modifiers in a systematic way facilitates establishment of accurate relationships between the sounds and symbols. The total number of phonemes in Hindi being less than 1000, it would be easy to manipulate them for programming in a computer.
SARAL scripts are computer friendly because they are compatible with standard ASCII format. All ASCII based text processing programs can be used in computers for these scripts. SARAL fonts can be used in computer as easily as English fonts.
Being truly phonetic, SARAL scripts are more suitable for developing voice recognition programs. The ultimate objective of voice recognition which would allow computers to understand spoken words and turn them into written script has been baffling but it could be achieved through the SARAL Scripts. It may be noted that sounds of 1000 phonemes can be easily stored and manipulated for voice recognition and articulation.The ultimate objective of voice recognition which would allow computers to understand spoken words and turn them into written script has been baffling but it could be achieved through the saral hindI script. It is not difficult to make a program for reading text written in saral hindI and produce accurate sounds represented by its characters. Such a program could be based on the logical sequence of instructions for reading characters in saral hindI .
Hindii and other languages of India are phoneme based while English is syllable based. This is one factor responsible for difference in pronunciation of English by an Indian. While learning to read and write Hindi, one has to familiarize oneself with the phonemes given in tabular form caled barakhari. The combination of consonants with vowels in a systematic way facilitates to establishment of accurate relationships between the sounds and shapes of phonemes. The total number of phonemes in Hindi being around 1000, it would be easy to manipulate them for programming in a computer.
It may be noticed that sounds of about 1000 phonemes can be easily stored and manipulated for voice recognition and articulation. This will be more accurate compared to the identification of words on basis of syllables which will be numerous, inexact and irregular.
Voice production program based on phonemes would be simple and more accurate. Phoneme based systems for conversion of text into speech (TTS) programs of computers follow symbol to sound rules. SARAL Scripts, because of their sound-symbol correspondence, would support such programs. It is not difficult to make a program for reading text written in SARAL Scripts and produce accurate sounds represented by their phonemes. This will be more accurate compared to the identification of words on basis of syllables which will be numerous, inexact and irregular.
SARAL scripts can be used for making web page on the Internet. SARAL fonts can be easily embedded in web pages and downloaded on the computers. Emails can also be sent in SARAL scripts.

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