OLPC India

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2007 status: green
green        

India is a very large multicultural country with many interest groups. Participation of OLPC project in India will not only revolutionize the way we teach children, the vision behind this "educational" project, but will also scale up the eco-system of sharing between the diverse set of communities existing in the Indian Subcontinent.

It is unfortunate that the HRD Ministry did'nt show positive vibes to participate in the education mission of the OLPC project. But, that does'nt imply that OLPC won't happen in India!

First,it is not unusual to see that there is not total agreement at a federal level, but most states in India are capable of deploying a million OLPCs due to the large population. This would actually simplify the task since a single state might need to support only 3 or 4 languages instead of 25.In addition, there are various charitable organizations active in India, and some of them are running projects which involve deploying technology to disadvantaged areas. They often have corporate sponsorship from western companies. There is an opportunity to get some of these projects on board with the OLPC and due to the high level of worldwide visibility of the OLPC project, it will be possible to attract large corporations to support this. One million units at $100 each is $100 million dollars. And as time goes on, the unit cost of the OLPC will drop.

So,considering the above mentioned platforms for OLPC to happen in India, it is good to confirm that the chances for OLPC-India are great. The formation of OLPC-India Foundation has been engineered, which comprises of corporate partners, non-profit organizations, Education Ministers at State Level, bureaucrats, and most importantly: interested volunteers.

OLPC-India pilot project is going to start during the end week of this month(September'07)! With the pilot soon to happen, India gets a green color in OLPC Map, which had to happen because of the interested Indian community in the OLPC project.

Languages needed for localization

Which language or languages are needed for localization for use by children in India please?

INDIA has 28 states and 24 official languages. The language with the largest number of speakers is Hindi however it is not a majority language. Because of the large number of languages, English has become the lingua franca in business and government. However, this is neither British nor American English but a distinct Indian dialect with its own unique vocabulary and style.

According to Ethnologue, 180,000,000 people in India speak Hindi. It is the official language of Arunachal Pradesh, Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Bihar, Chandigarh, Chhattisgarh, Delhi, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and Uttaranchal.

The other important languages and their respective states and population numbers are as below:

In addition to Hindi and English:

  • Assamese — official language of Assam (15,334,000 speakers)
  • Bengali — official language of Tripura and West Bengal (70,561,000 speakers)
  • Bodo — official language of Assam (70,561,000 speakers)
  • Dogri — official language of Jammu and Kashmir (2,105,000 speakers)
  • Gondi — language of the Gond tribals of the Gondwana (part of the northern Deccan plateau) comprising Chattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Orissa, Andhra Pradesh. (2,632,000 speakers)
  • Gujarati — language of Dadra and Nagar Haveli, Daman and Diu and Gujarat (45,479,000 speakers)
  • Kannada — official language of Karnataka (35,346,000 speakers)
  • Kashmiri — official language of Jammu and Kashmir (4,391,000 speakers)
  • Konkani — official language of Goa (4,000,000 speakers)
  • Malayalam — official language of Kerala and Lakshadweep (35,351,000 speakers)
  • Maithili - official language of Bihar (22,000,000 speakers)
  • Marathi — official language of Maharashtra (68,030,000 speakers)
  • Meitei or Meithei — official language of Manipur (1,240,000 speakers)
  • Nepali — official language of Sikkim (6,000,000 speakers)
  • Oriya — official language of Orissa (31,666,000 speakers)
  • Punjabi — official language of Punjab and Chandigarh, second official language of Delhi and Haryana (27,109,000 speakers)
  • Sanskrit — language of Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism, required teaching in many schools (6,106 speakers)
  • Santali - language of the Santhal tribals of the Chota Nagpur Plateau (comprising the states of Jharkhand, Bihar, Orissa and Chattisgarh) (5,959,000 speakers)
  • Sindhi - language of the Sindhi community (2,812,000 speakers)
  • Tamil — official language of Tamil Nadu and Pondicherry (61,527,000 speakers)
  • Telugu — official language of Andhra Pradesh (69,634,000 speakers)
  • Urdu — official language of Jammu and Kashmir, Andhra Pradesh, Delhi and Uttar Pradesh (48,062,000 speakers)

These are only estimates of numbers of speakers, of course, and refer to first languages, roughly the language spoken in the home. Sanskrit is spoken as the first language only in a few Brahmin families. Some of the numbers are from 1997.

External Links

IndLinux Language Teams: Hindi, Oriya, Assamese, Bengali, Gujarati, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Punjabi, Tamil, and Telugu

Other Localization Teams: Dzongkha (Bhutan), Nepali (Nepal), Sinhala (Sri Lanka), Pan Localization

Janabhaaratii Linux localization project: Hindi, Marathi, Gujarati, Bengali, Malayalam

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