Digitising Kannada: A work in progress

Digitising Kannada: A work in progress From electronic typesetting to ASCII-based proprietary fonts to Unicode to AI-enabled translation, Kannada has come a long way in its digital journey.

Key points

• Yogananda, founder of Sriranga Digital Software Technologies, remembers a funny instance of coming throughout a post on X around two years ago.
• The quirks of automated translation often create for amusing anecdotes.
• It translates to 'One should not forget those who supported'.

What happened

Meanwhile, the quirks of automated translation often create for amusing anecdotes. Photo Credit: IMAGING: SEBASTIAN FRANCIS.

C.S. Yogananda, founder of Sriranga Digital Software Technologies, remembers a funny instance of coming throughout a post on X around two years ago. After machine translation, took on an entirely different meaning, originally written in Kannada, the post.

In Kannada, he wrote 'ಸಹಾಯ ಮಾಡಿದವರನ್ನ ಮರೀಬಾರ್ದು (Sahaya madidavaranna mareebardu). It translates to 'One should not forget those who supported'. X's default translation in 2024-25 read, "Kill those who helped you."

The bottom line

In short, digitising Kannada: A work in progress is the central thread here, and readers can expect follow-up reporting as the picture becomes clearer.