Information Systems in Malayalam

Raman Nair, R. (2006) Information Systems in Malayalam. Delivered at Seminar on Malayalam Language Technology and Information Systems, Thrissur, Vimala College, India. Presentation.

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Abstract

[English abstract]

Knowledge accumulated in a society is recorded in its language. It is the base on which development process occur and is a capital resource which needs to be equitably distributed in a democratic system. ICT can undertake this function and empower and emancipate the backward people if Information Systems can be developed using the language/script of the people to cater to their day today vital information needs. Kerala has invested millions of rupees for Information Infrastructure development claiming to make information accessible to the un-reached. But the development concentrating on infrastructures disregarded ‘information’ part; especially applications for managing content in local language. This failure was due to non availability of Malayalam Language Technology. Malayalam Script which got final shape at the time of Tunjath Ezhuttachan and preserved as it is in printing by Benjamin Bailey (1821) and Herman Gundert who developed technology to suit the specificities of the language and script was modified and deformed by native scholars since 1970 to suit the English Typewriters. Adopting the same for computers also led to chaos and confusion. Digitizing local content was impossible till Rachana revived the original script that can be processed aas per their syntactic and semantic relations. The paper gives a birds eye view of Malayalam Language Technology development through DOS, ASCII, Windows and Unicode standards by C-DAC, CIRD, C-Dit, Rachana Aksharavedi etc. Covers also history of Information System development in Malayalam from the manual one; Malayalam Granthasooji of Sri. K.M. Govi to the digital systems developed by St. Mary's College, Kerala Sahitya Akademi, Brennen College, Vimala College, State Central Library, etc. Discusses the essential Information systems remaining to be developed in Malayalam like those on indigenous knowledge covering nattarivu, kattarivu, kadalrivu etc; indigenous medicines like otttamooli, siddha, unani, ayurveda, visha chikitsa etc. More than 90 % of the above recorded knowledge is in old script. So without the power to process it reliable systems in Malayalam can not be built up. The study opines that development of Malayalam language technology with provision for use of OCR, spell check etc for original script is a priority area in ICT development.

Keywords:	knowledge, Malayalam, language, technology, information, infrastructure, Ezhuttachan, Bailey, Herman, Gundert, English, typewriter, script, syntactic, semantic, research DOS, ASCII, Windows, Unicode, St.Mary's College Kerala Sahitya Akademi, Brennen, Vimala Centre for South Indian Studies, indigenous knowledge, nattarivu, kattarivu, kadalrivu, medicines, otttamooli, siddha unani, ayurveda, visha chikitsa, folk arts, OCR, spell check, search retrieval
Subjects:	H. Information sources, supports, channels. > HL. Databases and database Networking. A. Theoretical and general aspects of libraries and information. H. Information sources, supports, channels. > HP. e-resources. B. Information use and sociology of information. H. Information sources, supports, channels. > HS. Repositories. H. Information sources, supports, channels. > HC. Archival materials. L. Information technology and library technology. > LL. Automated language processing. L. Information technology and library technology. > LN. Data base management systems. H. Information sources, supports, channels. > HG. Non-print materials. L. Information technology and library technology. > LR. OPAC systems. L. Information technology and library technology. > LS. Search engines.
ID Code:	8565
Deposited By:	Raman Nair, R
Deposited On:	31 January 2007
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