A unique keyboard that aids learning
A unique keyboard to learn various Indic languages — Ka-naada — is being hailed as a device which will boost Brahmi script-based languages.
The device grabbed attention when it was featured in the reality show Shark Tank India recently. This layout design facilitates teaching of Kannada, Sanskrit and other languages, and is organised in a natural language learning and usage order.
DHonSaturday quizzed its creator Guru Prasad about the device’s design and purpose. The idea came to him about a decade ago, when he was trying to teach Kannada to his children in the US. “I noticed that our children refused to practise the script and pointed out that we were typing Kannada in English, and they could do the same,” he recollects.
This is when he started looking into the different layouts, keyboards, and typewriters that were being used then. “We did some research and found some layouts defined naturally for our languages (meaning the order of the alphabets, including vowels and consonants),” he says.
Deriving from the research, Prasad and Prof Sastry of Hindu University, Orlando, created a new layout and patented the idea. “In 2017, we got a US patent, and then I headed to India. I knew that the new layout would end up in a paradigm shift in the thinking of people.” Ka-naada is inspired from Maharishi Kanada, who was one of the first atomic scientists of India. “We wanted to name the device after him. ‘Naada’ stands for phonetics and the device has a phonetic layout for all Brahmi script languages.”
Prasad built small circuits over the last 12 years and tested them. But it was only five years ago that he decided to go full-stream and build actual circuits, user interfaces and other aspects.
“I am primarily a mechanical engineer and I realised that the typewriter has a mechanical layout. Even the word typewriter is arranged in such a way that the keys don’t hit each other,” he says. In a typewriter, all the letters are arranged in a semicircle so that they hit the same spot on the tape, with X and Y arranged differently for every alphabet.
Such restrictions weren’t needed for this device, despite having double the alphabets in Kannada (52 alphabets). “We looked at combining swar (vowel) and vyanjan (consonant) in an easy manner. In the layout of the keyboard, the logic we struggled with was which consonants should be next to what vowels, usage of words etc,” he explains. Compared to the QWERTY keyboard, this keyboard has nine vowel and consonant clusters. “Our first keyboard was square-shaped but when we took it to the market, people refused to use it as they couldn’t accept the shape. Design changes with a smaller version for children was brought then but teachers said it was small for their fingers,” remembers Prasad.
Normal keyboards are made of injection moulding dies, which are made abroad but no company wanted to make dies for Ka-naada. “We started with a membrane keyboard, which wasn’t accepted well. It refers to how tactile touch of the finger is connected with one’s brain. We got a 3D printer and started making the die and had to convince companies to later create them for us,” he elaborates.
The keyboard connects to laptops, computers, phones and microcomputers. There are beginner and intermediate apps to learn how to use it.
The reason for such a keyboard is that in about 30 years, around seven languages (including Devanagari, Telugu, Malayalam and Kannada) will go out of use, Prasad says. “Thus technology must be connected to our languages and job opportunities should be created for rural folks,” he says.
Design challenges
*Stress on ergonomics like space between the buttons, different shifts buttons.
*Different iterations. Square shape didn’t work in the market.
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