Computer assisted translation system – an Indian perspective

MT Summit VII Sept. 1999 Computer Assisted Translation System- An Indian Perspective HEMANT DARBARI Applied Artificial Intelligence Group Center for Development of Advanced Computing Pune University Campus, PUNE - 411 007 (INDIA) darbari@cdac.ernet.in Abstract Work in the area of Machine Translation has been going on for several decades and it was only during the early 90s that a promising translation technology began to emerge with advanced researches in the field of Artificial Intelligence and Computational Linguistics. This held the promise of successfully developing usable Machine Translation Systems in certain well-defined domains. C- DAC took up this challenge, as we felt that India, being a multi-lingual and multi-cultural country with a population of approximately 950 million people and 18 constitutionally recognized languages, needs a translation system for instant transfer of information and knowledge. The other groups who are working in this area of English to Hindi Translation are National Center for Software Technology (NCST), who are working on translation of News Stories and Electronics Research & Development Center of India (ER&DCI). who have developed the Machine Assisted Translation System for the Health Domain. A major project on Indian Languages to Indian Languages Translation (Anusaaraka) is also under development at University of Hyderabad. 1. Introduction Language processing demands intelligence artificial or otherwise. This may seem like a truism, – but in fact it is difficult to convince oneself that something as easy as talking and listening demands very high computational sophistication. Just like seeing, using language seems effortless. 2. MANTRA-MAchiNe assisted TRAnslation tool Center for Development of Advanced Computing (C- DAC) is a premier National Institute of the Department of Electronics (DOE), Government of India. C-DAC is committed to design, develop and deliver Advanced Computing Solutions for Human Advancement. The Applied Artificial Intelligence (AAI) Group at C-DAC is working on some of the fundamental applications in the field of Natural Language Processing, Machine Translation, Intelligent Language Teaching and Decision Support Systems. MANTRA is one of its major achievements. This system translates the text from English to Hindi in the domain of Personnel Administration. The motivation for taking up this challenge was that in order to achieve national unity and integration in the face of the linguistic and cultural diversity, the founding fathers of our constitution had identified Hindi as the Official Language of the Indian Union. According to the Official Language Act, all Central Government communications have to be made simultaneously available both in Hindi and English, as English continues to be the associate official language. Accordingly the bulk of official business is initiated and conducted in English. Presently, the translation work is executed manually by a large network of translators positioned in all Government Departments and Public Sector Undertakings. However, the translators find it difficult to cope with the massive translation requirement leading to inordinate delays. In order to overcome this problem, an early initiative was taken by the AAI group when it received funds from DOE and United Nations Development Program (UNDP) under the program ‘Knowledge Based Computer System’. We …

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