Facebook has added more local languages to its text editor in its Android app. (Hat-tip: Sahil Kini) The transliteration feature in the mobile app will enable users to comment in 12 native or local Indian languages including Telugu, Marathi, Gujrati, Bengali amongst others. Till now, Facebook was offering transliteration only in Hindi.

Great to see @facebook push Indian languages within the app. In-built transliteration is good. Keyboard layouts could improve. @reverietech pic.twitter.com/K5eMyk6ohA — Sahil Kini (@sahilkini) September 27, 2017

How it works?

When users tap comment in the app, they see a language button on the right side of the bar. A user can choose any of the 12 languages by tapping the editor button. And then, when you start typing, the tool automatically transliterates English and provides suggestions for the appropriate Hindi or the chosen language character.

Why focus on Indian Languages

Biggies like Facebook and Google have been ramping up their efforts for Indian market by focusing on regional languages, as these businesses wouldn’t want Internet usage to be limited to the users who are familiar with English: that’s a fraction of the country’s population.

Recently, Google announced voice search in 8 additional Indian languages: Bengali, Gujarati, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Tamil, Telugu, and Urdu. Google also lunched Gbroad in April this year, which consists of 22 Indian languages like Assamese, Bengali, Bodo, Dogri, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Kashmiri, Konkani, Maithili, Malayalam, Manipuri, Marathi, Nepali, Odia, Punjabi, Sanskrit, Santhali, Sindhi, Tamil, Telugu and Urdu. Google had earlier started displaying various search information in Hindi.

Moreover, companies like BookMyShow, Amazon’s Kindle, Quikr, Snapdeal etc. have been adding atleast Hindi interfaces in their mobile apps, and most support additional languages like Tamil, Telugu etc.

Note that, the Government has made it mandatory for all mobile handsets being manufactured or sold in the country, to come loaded with multi-language support feature.