The Bharati (ISO: Bhārati) script is a constructed script created by a research team led by V. Srinivasa Chakravarthy at IIT Madras. It is designed to serve as a common script or link script for Indian languages.[1][2][3][4][5][6] It is a left-to-right abugida in which the vowel diacritics may be placed below, upon, or to the right of the primary character.[4]
| Bharati script Bhārati Lipi | |
|---|---|
 "Bhārati" written in the Bharati script | |
| Script type | |
| Creator | Research team led by Srinivasa Chakravathy |
| Direction | Left-to-right  |
| Language | Multiple Indian languages |
| Related scripts | |
Parent systems | |
The script borrows characters and concepts from multiple scripts including the Latin script, Devanagari, Tamil script, Telugu script, Kannada script, Malayalam script, and the Bengali–Assamese script.[2][7] Like the Gujarati script, it does not feature a running horizontal line above the characters, which is a characteristic of the Devanagari and Bengali-Assamese scripts.
Development
editBharati is proposed to be a common script or link script of Indian languages, including both Indo-Aryan and Dravidian language families, much as the Latin script serves as a common script for many European languages.
It may also serve the purpose of providing a written means for tribal languages that do not have a writing system.
V. Srinivasa Chakravarthy started this project at IIT Madras and a research team led by him developed it.[1][8][2][3][4][5][6]
Input and fonts
editThe Bharati script is supported on all operating systems using fonts created by the Bharati team, namely NavBharati and SundarBharati, which transliterate characters of supported scripts into their Bharati equivalents.[8]
NavBharati is a TrueType sans-serif font which supports transliteration of the Devanagari, Tamil, Telugu and Malayalam scripts. SundarBharati is an OpenType serif font which supports transliteration of all of the scripts supported by NavBharati, in addition to the Bengali-Assamese script.
Three Android apps are also offered, which can output text in chosen scripts using a Bharati-based keyboard and handwriting, and transliterate other scripts into Bharati.[8]
An OCR system for the script has also been developed.[9][3] It is yet to be added to Unicode.
Mudra Bharati
editA finger-spelling system is proposed alongside the Bharati script named Mudra Bharati, for use as a sign language.[8]
Unlike the American Sign Language convention, Mudra Bharati utilises two hands.
A prototype has been developed using self-organizing maps and convolutional neural networks, which can give out characters in Devanagari and Tamil scripts after recognition from Mudra Bharati.[10]
See also
editReferences
edit- ^ a b Malli, Karthik (May 30, 2019). "Why It Isn't Easy to Devise an Intermediary Script for Indian Languages". The Wire. Archived from the original on October 7, 2022. Retrieved October 7, 2022.
- ^ a b c Rajwi, Tiki (October 3, 2017). "One nation, one script: Bharati is the common script for all Indian languages". The New Indian Express. Archived from the original on October 7, 2022. Retrieved October 7, 2022.
- ^ a b c Desikan, Shubashree (April 27, 2019). "IIT Madras team develops easy OCR system for nine Indian languages". The Hindu. ISSN 0971-751X. Archived from the original on July 24, 2023. Retrieved October 7, 2022.
- ^ a b c Naik, Manali; Chakravarthy, V. Srinivasa (2017). "A comparative study of complexity of handwritten Bharati characters with that of major Indian scripts". 2017 International Joint Conference on Neural Networks (IJCNN). pp. 3050–3057. arXiv:1609.09227. doi:10.1109/IJCNN.2017.7966235. ISBN 978-1-5090-6182-2.
- ^ a b "Script which helps read 22 Indian languages on cards". Deccan Chronicle. October 4, 2017. Archived from the original on October 7, 2022. Retrieved October 7, 2022.
- ^ a b Ramya, M. (July 17, 2013). "IIT prof writes one script to unify 22 languages". The Times of India. Archived from the original on October 14, 2022. Retrieved October 7, 2022.
- ^ "Dr. V. Srinivasa Chakravarthy: Bharati is a script not a language". www.india.com. Archived from the original on October 7, 2022. Retrieved October 7, 2022.
- ^ a b c d "Unified script of India - Bharati". bharatiscript.com. Archived from the original on October 7, 2022. Retrieved October 7, 2022.
- ^ Vorugunti, Chandra Sekhar; Chakravarthy, Srinivasa; Pulabaigari, Viswanath (2018). "An efficient Multi Lingual Optical Character Recognition system for Indian languages through use of Bharati Script" (PDF). Bharati Script. Archived (PDF) from the original on August 12, 2022. Retrieved October 7, 2022.
- ^ Amal Jude Ashwin, F.; Chakravarthy, V. Srinivasa; Kopparapu, Sunil Kumar (2021). "An AI-Based Detection System for Mudrabharati: A Novel Unified Fingerspelling System for Indic Scripts". In Ekštein, Kamil; Pártl, František; Konopík, Miloslav (eds.). Text, Speech, and Dialogue. Lecture Notes in Computer Science. Vol. 12848. Cham: Springer International Publishing. pp. 425–434. doi:10.1007/978-3-030-83527-9_36. ISBN 978-3-030-83527-9. S2CID 237403848. Archived from the original on October 8, 2022. Retrieved October 8, 2022.