Asia Cup matches to be telecast in Hindi as well
(Thru The Hindu)

"In a bid to increase the cricket viewership base in India, sports broadcasting major ESPN-Star Sports, today announced that it would provide simultaneous telecast of important Asia Cup matches in English and Hindi on its two channels.
[...]
""We want to get closer to the viewers in India. We want to say India this is your channel by giving the option to the viewer to watch his favourite game in a language which he understands best," R C Venkateish, Managing Director, ESPN Software India Private Limited, said at a press conference here today.

""Simultaneous telecast of live matches on two channels is a first of its kind initiative," he said adding Indian Oil would be the principal sponsor of the Asia Cup starting in Sri Lanka on July 16.

"The Hindi cricket telecast will be called 'Voice Aaki-Choice Aapki' and Hindi would be used for all aspects of the telecast including show hosting, commentary and graphics."

ब्राउजर "ओपरा" (Opera) हिन्दी में

बकौल अनुवादक धनञ्जय शर्मा:
"मैंने ओपरा ७.२३ संस्मरण (लिनक्स तथा विंडोज़ हेतु) का हिन्दी अनुवाद हाल ही में समाप्त किया है और ओपरा अनुवाद प्रबंधक को समीक्षा व अनुमोदन हेतु प्रेषित किया था। अब इन अनुवादों का अनुमोदन हो गया है और ये हिन्दी भाषा फ़ाइलें ओपरा ७.२३ के लिए लिनक्स तथा विंडोज़
दोनों के लिए अब ओपरा अधिकारिक वेब-स्थल पर उपलब्ध हैं।"

ascii to devanagarii converter from Tokyo University of Foreign Studies.

A Web site - www.mla.org - launched Wednesday by the Modern Language Association allows anyone to track the breakdown of languages anywhere in the United States, even down to ZIP code, based on 2000 census numbers.

Hindi, with 3,17,057 speakers, is the 18th most spoken language in the country. If Urdu speakers (2,62,900; at 20th position) are included the ranking goes up to 13th. The only other Indian language identified for tracking - Gujarati - is at the 21st position with 2,35,988 speakers.

Kuwaiti Embassy launches Hindi, Urdu websites

"New Delhi, June 16. (UNI): Information and Broadcasting Minister S Jaipal Reddy today launched the Hindi and Urdu websites of the Kuwait Information Office at a function here. "

The Hindi website URL is: http://www.kuwait-info.com/hindi/

Hindi vital to know the Indian culture - John Dayal:
From The Milli Gazette

New Delhi: Hindi is the language of vast majority of Indian population. To master Hindi is vital to know the Indian culture and to talk into its people, eminent journalist John Dayal observed while speaking after releasing the Hindi Rafeeque-e- Manzil, the organ of Students Islamic Organisation of India (SIO). Without knowing the cultural equations it is difficult to reach out to the society, he said.

When Hindi Overwrites English Software

"IT firms make fast moves to grab their share of the growing local language computing in Hindi, Gujarati, Bengali and Telugu in India"

Complete story from Financial Express

'DMK Was Never Anti-Hindi, Only Against Its Imposition' - Dayanidhi Maran (Communications Minister, India)

From an interview in Outlook

Has your party diluted its age-old anti-Hindi, anti-north stance?

The old stance changed a long time ago. What you're talking about was probably true in the 1960s. DMK changes. It believes in keeping up with the changes in the country and the world. Moreover, let me tell you that the DMK was never anti-Hindi. It was never ever against Hindi. It was just opposed to the imposition of Hindi on Tamil Nadu. Otherwise, we respect Hindi as much as our own language.

Zi Corporation to unveil unique text entry innovations for the Asian market at CommunicAsia - News

"Zi Corporation, whose technology lies at the heart of more than 84 million mobile phones around the world, will showcase its unique predictive text entry innovations in Singapore this month from June 15 to 18 during CommunicAsia at Stand 5C1-07, Hall 5, in the Canadian Pavilion. The demonstration will include text entry innovations for China and India, the fastest growing mobile markets with the greatest potential ...

"... Zi will also showcase its Hindi prediction text entry solutions. As the innovation leader in predictive text entry technology, Zi was the first to introduce predictive text input solutions in the Hindi language for the large, untapped Indian market."

अक्षर: कम्प्यूटर भारत के परिपेक्ष्य में - एक नया प्रयास

इस साइट के निरेंद्र के अनुसार यह हिन्दीअक्षर प्रोजेक्ट अंग्रेज़ी न जानने वाले भारतीय भाषा भाषियों के लिए ओपन सोर्स (मुक्त-श्रोत ?) सॉफ़्टवेयर विकास को प्रोत्साहित करने का एक प्रयास है. इस प्रोजेक्ट के बारे में विमर्श के लिये आप इसके विकी समूह या डाक सूची में शामिल हो सकते हैं.

हिन्दी में लिनक्स और लिनक्स में हिन्दी - धनञ्जय शर्मा की वेब साइट

साइट परिचय में धनञ्जय कहते हैं,

"हिन्दी में लिनक्स और लिनक्स में हिन्दी , के उपयोग के अपने व्यक्तिगत अनुभवों को समस्त लिनक्स व हिन्दी जगत के साथ साझा करने के उद्वेश्य से मैने इस वेब स्थल का निर्माण किया है । इन अनुभवों को मैने मैनड्रैकलिनक्स संचालन-तंत्र पर प्राप्त किया है । आशा नहीं वरन विश्वास करता हूँ कि जहाँ आप मेरे अनुभवों से लाभान्वित होगें वहाँ मै भी आपके सुझावों और टिप्पणियों से अपने इस कार्य को और अधिक परिष्कॄत और उन्नत कर पाऊँगा । "

'मैं किसी को हराने नहीं आया हूँ':
मनोज बाजपेयी (फ़िल्म अभिनेता)
...
मुझे यह भी लगता है कि हिंदी फिल्मों में हिंदी जाति का स्वर नहीं सुनाई पड़ता. हिंदी प्रदेशों के लोगों की सामूहिक आकाँक्षा हिंदी फ़िल्मों में ही नहीं आ पा रही है.

सब कुछ इतना सिंथैटिक, नकली, वायवीय और पश्चिमोन्मुख हो गया है कि हिंदी फ़िल्में हिंदी दर्शकों को संतुष्ट नहीं कर पा रही हैं.
...

More Hindi words enter Oxford dictionary (Mid-day)
...
London: English is being spiced up with sprinkling of some more words from Hindi.

In the latest edition of the Oxford English Dictionary, there is already a host of Hindi words, including ‘Angrez’ (English person) and ‘badmash’ (naughty) while many more are being entered into the Collins Bank of English, which screens words for entry.

The Hindi words likely to find a place in the English Dictionary are: Achha (OK, or is that so?), Aloo (Indian potato), Arre (used to express surprise), Chaddi (underwear), Desi (local, indigenous), filmi (related to Bollywood), Very filmi (Drama queen or king), Gora (white person), Jungli (uncultured) and Yaar (friendly form of address).

According to a report in ‘The Observer’ today, Arfaan Khan, a linguist based at Reading University, told a major conference at the University of Newcastle this month to expect a ‘whole new dialect’ to emerge.

“This will be an increasing trend,” said Jeremy Butterfield, editor-in-chief of the Collins dictionaries.

“If new words are used enough, they will end up in the dictionary, and once they are there they become English words, too. With our increasingly multi-cultural society, in 50 years English will have adopted a mass of words from all the different cultures living on this island.”

And those who complain about the loss of the purity of the language are simply misguided, according to experts.
...

Pitonneur Hindi typing software - a Nagari IME for Mac OS X by Ted Clancy

"EasyHindi makes typing Hindi simple. It allows you to type words in Hindi script by simply typing their usual roman transliteration on your QWERTY keyboard. It automatically takes care of things like viramas, bindus, nuktas, and whether to use independant or dependent vowel signs."

The transcription scheme resembles the already popular iTrans for the most part. However one feels that it could have been closer and the changes should rather have been towards the shortcomings of iTrans (e.g.: ee for ई, oo for ऊ could have been used). To quote another example, for 'ख़', the usual iTrans 'K' or a better 'Kh' could have been used instead of 'x', which sounds too distant from the sound of 'ख़'. A wonderful effort nonetheless.

दैनिक हिन्दुस्तान के हेमंत जोशी हिंदी पत्रकारिता में अंग्रेज़ी शब्दों के अनावश्यक और अनुचित प्रयोगों से चिंतित हैं:

"हिन्दी के एक अख़बार ने तो अंग्रेज़ी इस्तेमाल करने का नया कीर्तिमान स्थापित किया है। उसमें कुछ दिन पहले मुखपृष्ठ पर छपी ख़बर का शीर्षक था 'सरकारी बाबुओं को तोहफ़ा, डीए मर्ज करने को मंजूरी'। यहाँ अनावश्यक ढंग से अंग्रेज़ी मिली हिन्दी लिखने का सवाल तो है ही, बात अंग्रेज़ी के ऐसे शब्दों को हिन्दी में प्रचलित करने की भी है जो हिन्दी में उनसे मिलते जुलते शब्दों का भ्रम पैदा करते हों। हिन्दी में मर्ज़ का अर्थ है बीमारी और अंग्रेज़ी के मर्ज का तात्पर्य है मिलाना। वैसे भी जब किसी भाषा के लोग दूसरी भाषा की क्रियाएँ अपने क्रिया पदों में मिलाने लगते हैं तो जानिए कि भाषा के प्राण हरने का इन्तज़ाम कर लिया गया है।"

पूरा लेख - क्या बने बात वहाँ...