IIIT Hyderabad-Sampark Machine Translation System

International Institute of Information Technology (IIIT) Hyderabad has come up with a new language translation system which will offer translations between different pairs of languages. Named as project Sampark, a machine translation system allows online users to convert content from one language to another just with a mouse click. The four pairs of languages offered initially are 1. Hindi to Punjabi, 2. Punjabi to Hindi, 3. Urdu to Hindi and 4. Telugu to Tamil. IIIT-H is scheduled to launch the innovative language application on 30th March 2011. The Sampark is likely to break the language barriers of online users of various languages, who like to read contents posted in other languages. The project was headed by Dr. Dipti Misra Sharma.

Initially, IIIT Hyderabad will launch machine translation system (MTS) for four pairs (total of 8 languages) of Indian languages for online / internet users. The first 4 pairs will be released by Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam, former President of India on 30th March 2011 as part of the opening of international conference on World Wide Web. The project Sampark will enable internet users to convert / translate the available content on internet.

IIIT Hyderabad is working on 18 pairs of languages at present. It is likely to release 4 more pairs in the coming 3-4 months. IIIT-H is also planning to make the entire set of language translation system ready in a year or so. Dr. Rahmat Yousuf Zai has worked on the most complicated task of Urdu-Hindi and Hindi -Urdu translation. The project team opined that there will be some problems with regard to syntax and spelling initially which can be sorted out after getting feedback and suggestions from the online users.

The Project named as ‘Sampark: Machine Translation among Indian Languages (Experimental Version)’ is funded by TDIL Program, Department of Information Technology, Govt. of India and developed by Consortium of Institutions. The participant institutions in the project are IIIT Hyderabad (Consortium Leader), IISc-Banglore, CDAC (Noida, Pune), Anna University KBC Chennai, University of Hyderabad, IIT Kharagpur, IIT Bombay, Tamil University, IIIT Allahabad and Jadavpur University.