Google Maps improves transliteration feature for 10 Indian languages

A new feature on Google Maps will automatically transliterate 10 prominent Indian local languages. This will enable millions to issue queries in their own language and find information on Maps, Google said on Wednesday.

The map displays the name of a Point of Interest (POI) such as restaurants, petrol pumps, hospitals, banks, bus stops, train stations and numerous other services from English (Latin script) to Hindi, Bengali, Marathi, Telugu, Tamil, Gujarati, Kannada, Malayalam, Punjabi and Odia.

"In a country where names of establishments are written with words from multiple languages and acronyms, phonetically mapping these words into their native language will help us more accurately surface the results that local language users are looking for," Cibu Johny, Software Engineer, Google Maps, said in a statement.

Johny added that Google have used transliterations from the English name of the place instead of translations. The impression behind this is that people are familiar with mixed languages to search for a certain place. For example, if school is commonly used in Hindi than Vidhyalay or Paathshala, then people could easily spell it in hinglish and get directed to the right place.

It is also important to note that transliteration is only concerned with writing the same words in a different script and transliterated POI names are not translations.

(with minor edits from IANS)