International Mother Tongue Day: Punjabi University launches new version of Akhar software

Punjabi University launched an upgraded version of Akhar software. Vice-chancellor Prof Arvind formally dedicated the software on Monday which coincided with International Mother Tongue Day

Punjabi University has launched an upgraded version of Punjabi software Akhar-2021. It was initially launched in 2016.

The new features have made Akhar software an invaluable tool for learners, typists, students, teachers, journalists and writers. Punjabi University has launched an upgraded version of the software that coincided with International Mother Tongue Day. (PTI File Photo/ Representational image)

Vice-chancellor Prof Arvind formally dedicated the software on Monday which coincided with International Mother Tongue Day on the university campus.

According to Dr Gurpreet Singh Lehal, university’s director research, Centre for Punjabi Language Technology, and the project leader of the software, Akhar-2021, besides the word processing features provided in the earlier version, such as Punjabi typing facility, Punjabi spell checker, artificial intelligence (AI)-based font converter, Punjabi-English dictionaries and Gurmukhi-Shahmukhi transliteration, many new features have been added in Akhar 2021.

Some of the new prominent features provided in Akhar 2021for simplifying the usage of Punjabi on computers are auto-correction, auto-spell checking, auto-word completion, thesaurus, script grammar checker, email facility, and a powerful AI-based multilingual fuzzy search, Dr Lehal said.

This is the first time that any Indian language word processor has provided such powerful features for any Indian language and these features have made Akhar 2021 an invaluable tool for learners, typists, students, teachers, journalists and writers.

For the promotion of digitisation of the Punjabi language, Akhar 2021 will be installed in offices of the Punjab government and training will be provided to the staff for the usage of Akhar-2021. The spell checker, dictionaries and typing tools in the upgraded version will simplify the creation of correctly spelled Punjabi documents, official letters and emails even for those not conversant with Punjabi typing or spellings.

Dr Lehal also gave a live demonstration of Akhar-2021 and converted with high accuracy one of the poem of Bhai Vir Singh from Gurmukhi to Shahmukhi.