Microsoft Offers 10 Indic Phonetic Keyboards to Windows Insiders

As you know, Indic is a country that has 22 official languages, as well as hundreds of other regional languages and dialects, which are spoken by millions of persons across this country and aboard.

With the rapid development of internet connectivity nationwide, a mass of regional users are logging in and searching for contents that are in their own regional languages on the web every day.

According to the estimate by Google, there will be approximately 536 million internet users that use Indian languages in the coming years. To meet the native language users’ needs, some tech giants like Microsoft and Google is to incorporate more products and services in regional languages.

Months ago, Google had released Indic keyboard. And now, Microsoft is doing the same work. Microsoft India is making technology accessible and productive for all and has announced the availability of its new Phonetic keyboards in Indian languages to Windows Insiders.

Microsoft Indic Phonetic Keyboards for 10 Languages

This new feature supports 10 Indian languages, such Punjabi, Gujarati, Odia, as Hindi, Bangla, Tamil, Kannada, Marathi, Telugu, and Malayalam. The new Microsoft Phonetic keyboards are the complement of Indic Traditional INSCRIPT keyboards that are already available in Windows.

For Windows Insider Program members, the keyboards are available since they have been added to Windows Insider Preview Build 18272 that was rolled out last month. Despite with you for some time, only now the feature is discovered. Users participating in this program can start using them and share their feedbacks.

Besides, the Microsoft Indic language keyboards are expected to be added to Windows 10 later. Subsequently, Indian language users will not need to download and install any external IMEs (stands for Input Method Editors) to type Indic text in a phonetic style.

When words are typed by the regional language users using their existing QWERTY keypads, Indic Phonetic keyboards can translate them into suggested possible Indic text options.

According to Microsoft, it introduces how the feature works. For example, if users type namaste using the Phonetic keyboard, it will automatically suggest नमस्ते /ਨਮਸਤੇ/ નમસ્તે in Hindi/Punjabi/Gujarati.

How to Set up to Use Microsoft Phonetic Keyboards

If you are interested in testing the Indic language keyboards, you can go to set up. How to do this work? Follow the instructions below.

Step 1: Go to Settings.

Step 2: Navigate to Time & Languages and enter the Language menu.

Step 3: Click + icon to add the preferred languages and choose the type of keyboard.

Step 4: Next, enable the Phonetic keyboards by clicking on the input indicator on the taskbar or press Windows key + Space key, then select the Indic Phonetic keyboards.

Final Words

In order to get a first-hand experience of the Indic Phonetic keyboards, users need to join Windows Insider Program. As Build 18272 is a Windows 10 19H1 preview, the keyboards will be widely available in the next major release of Windows 10.