Data Science Lab in Pakistan Develops Urdu-Hindi Dictionary

Smartphones have changed the way people used to communicate with each other. It has brought many advancements in various fields. With the advent of smart keyboards, the Urdu script has arrived in mobile phones. Though, its application remains tedious at best.

The Data Science Lab (DSL) at Lahore’s Information Technology University has developed an application named the Urdu-Hindi Dictionary. That can overcome this language obstacle. It delivers a potent custom search that will permit you to find the translation of every word in Arabic, Urdu, Hindi or English.

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Over 542 million people speak either Hindi or Urdu which makes them one of the most common languages spoken.

“Due to its popularity, Roman Urdu and Roman Hindi is emerging as a language so the Urdu-Hindi Dictionary has a lot of potential.”

Dr. Faisal Kamiran, director of the Data Science Lab said.

Data Science Lab in Pakistan Develops Urdu-Hindi Dictionary

“Our research is mainly about understanding this Roman Urdu text which is used very frequently in SMS, Facebook, Tweets and other forms of social media.”

Dr. Kamiran revealed.

The application can also be used to translate from Roman Urdu to English, Roman Hindi to English, and even English to Urdu, Hindi and Arabic. Each group provides you with the translated word with its definition, synonyms and verbs.

The Urdu-Hindi Dictionary provides a simple user interface (UI) with over 10 ten different categories for user accessibility for instance fruits, vegetables, animals, profession, elements, and tools.

While making the app it faced some challenges, the Data Science Lab revealed.

“One complication was that there is no standard for writing in Roman Urdu and quite a few variations of the same word existed.”

Dr. Kamiran informed.

The associates of the Data Science Lab wrote a research paper that controlled this disparity and came up with an algorithm that would comprehend that all these diverse spellings still mean the same word.

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The Citizen Feedback Monitoring Program (CFMP), a project of the Punjab Information Technology Board, is looking thoroughly into this application for future use.

The app can be used to help endow the low-literate population. The Urdu-Hindi dictionary also has many applications in social media mining.

Also Read: Best Free Online Dictionary

It was again launched on 11th November, 2016. The app has already had 30,000 downloads on Android and 8,000 downloads on iOS.

At present the app is available for download on Google Store.

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