Companies to focus on the use of regional languages to understand technology programs. It is expected to become the next significant evolution in India, helping build an emotional connection with the audience.
India is a very diverse country in terms of culture, religion, tradition, race, language, festivals, cuisines and much more. Over the centuries, many people from across the world migrated and settled in India, bringing more cultures and traditions. Also, India has been ruled by various rulers belonging to different religions and traditions. As a result, there are more than 19,500 languages or dialects spoken in mother tongue and around 121 languages are spoken across the country by a population of 1.3 Billion+ people.
Despite the diversity, English as a language is preferred by all the technology companies. English is considered a co-official language in India, as it is more common in higher-level businesses, universities, and government sectors. Estimates range between anything from 11% to 28% of the Indian population speaks the English language. These figures reflect an upside potential and a market for tech-companies to expand their operations in regional languages. Last year, Amazon launched an India program to help Alexa learn Hindi and other regional languages like Tamil, Telugu, Bengali, Kannada, Gujarati, and Marathi. Hollywood releases movies dubbed in many Indian languages. Even the largest tech giant Google also plans to roll out its features in five Indian languages – Hindi, Bangla, Marathi, Tamil and Telugu.
Many companies are joining the movement and exploring unchartered territories by launching their programs in regional languages. 5G technology is going to be available for the masses in the upcoming few months as the internet continues to become an indispensable part of our generation. Technology solutions on regional languages will open new opportunities for users across the country.
Let us look at the key points where regional languages can bring a point of inflection:
- Emotional Connect: Big MNCs and companies try hard to build an emotional connection with the audience. Tech with a flavour of regional languages will be easier to accept for people who speak local languages. We have seen how tech solutions ranging from an automated voice to a complete online video on YouTube are widely accepted in regional languages.
- Readily-Available Tech: The introduction of tech in vernacular languages will allow easy and handy access to the technology program to all the people. This will help increase the overall user base and allow a comprehensive understanding of the technology.
- Scope of the latest tech: The number of users having access to the internet is growing exponentially. As people from different parts of the country continue to welcome the technology, it is even more critical for the companies to launch their platforms in Indic languages. There lies a vast potential for expansion in regional markets.
Redesigning the products targeting regional markets will bring a significant evolution in the country. More students will be able to have better access to quality education. With the current trends chartering a course for online learning methods, platforms giving an option to access the course materials in regional languages will allow students from different geographical locations to access the learning. Many rural and suburban areas are unavailable to have better technological developments as they do not get the right exposure. Online learning materials, voice-enabled interfaces in regional languages, internet utilities and many other such things will drive the basic customer instinct to adopt more friendly technologies.
With such massive scope to serve the second largest populous country globally, technology programs in regional languages can help bridge the gap between language and technology. Technologies like Artificial Intelligence can make India genuinely digital. Moreover, AI and ML technologies will also help understand human psychology at a broader level as natural language processing would also be used to understand the Indic languages, which can be used to understand a customer’s need.
About Author: The author is Anoop Gautam, CEO and Co-founder of Tinker Coders. Anoop is an experienced professional with a demonstrated history of working in the education management industry.
