Monday, June 29, 2009

Google launches Urdu transliteration service

I found out about the Google's Urdu Transliteration service today via a tweet from Badar Khushnood. I spent some time using it, and must say it does an excellent job of converting roman urdu into the native script. Some phrases that were converted flawlessly were:

Dekh magar pyar se - دیکھ مگر پیار سے

Naach na jaanay aangan tairha - ناچ نہ جانے آنگن ٹھیڑھا

Dil kay behlanay to Ghalib yeh khayaal acha hay - دل کے بہلانے کو غالب یہ خیال اچھا ہے

Daant tor diyay yaar - دانت توڑ دیے یار

No pattern to the aforementioned phrases btw, just some stuff I wrote off the top of my head :)

Interestingly, when you write "Daant tor" and specifically "tor" it converts it to a tor with a TOEY (ط) and not a TAY(ت). Pressing backspace, it offers more options ... one of which is tor with a TAY. Try it. Cool stuff. There were, however, some inconsistencies. For example, Umer works fine (عمر), Umar doesn't (امر); Abbas converts to ابباس; Nisar converts to نصر; but like I said, if you press backspace it offers more options including the correct one.

Some minor glitches, but nothing that cannot be improved upon later. For the most part, the transliteration engine rocks and converts most common phrases and words without a problem (case in point, bhains ki taang - بھینس کی ٹانگ) lol ! All in all, nicely done Google.

8 comments:

DarkLord said...

Thanks for the post.

Amazing work from Google! I am able to type almost any Urdu word using this tool. Since, this is the first launch, we can expect Google to iterate and improve quality..

ابوشامل said...

گوگل ٹرانسلٹریٹ کے ذریعے ان لوگوں کا آخری بہانہ بھی ختم کیا جا رہا ہے جنہیں اردو لکھتے ہوئے کچھ مشکل ہوتی ہے۔ ابھی یہ تجرباتی مراحل میں ہے اور لانچ نہیں ہوا ہے۔ جیسے ہی لانچ ہوگا امید ہے کہ بہت شاندار ہوگا۔

Jeech said...

واہ! زبردست !!

شکریہ گوگل !!

Unknown said...

@DarkLord
You're welcome! Aamzing work indeed. I'm looking forward to them porting this feature over to Gmail so we can write Urdu emails with ease. That seems to be the next logical step to take.

@AbuShaml
Baja Farmaya Qibla Aap Nay Bilkul!

@Jeech
It was long overdue, but shukriya Google indeed :)

Awais Naseer Keyani said...

OMG!! aap ko bhi traslate krnay k liyay yehi kuch mila tha!~!!! Google bechara bhi sochta ho ga k launch hotay hi kiss museebat se paala parr gia!! :D

Unknown said...

@Awais
Like I said man ... just some stuff I wrote off the top of my head :)

Sana said...

واقعے اب تو کوے وجہ باکی نہ رہتی ہاں ایک دو جگہ کچھ غلطیا مطلوب ہیں مگر اتنا سب کچھ چلتا ہے وقت کی ساتھ ساتھ وہ سب بھی یہ لوگ ٹھیک کردینگے انشاللہ

Syed Ghulam Akbar said...

I have developed a bookmarklet application using the Googgle Trasnliteration API and with this you can read and write Urdu on any web page.

The details, steps to use and the video tutorial for this is available at:
http://syedgakbar.co.cc/products/web/

BTW, now you can also transliterate from Hindi to English and Hindi to Urdu using this tool.

Regards, Akbar

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