Aksharam is an an android application for users who know the script for an Indic language and want to use that existing knowledge to learn the script for another Indic language.
Aksharam lays out the alphabets of each language in a format that is easy to understand and refer. The app comes with a feature to practice the letters in a new language by entering the corresponding transliterated characters. Finally, the app also has a small transliteration utility to quickly enter some text and see how it transliterates to a language of your choice.
Currently Kannada, Hindi and Malayalam are supported.
For the future, I would like to support as many languages as possible. Tamil and Telugu are the immediate next ones I would like to add.
Note, I am not a student of languages and while I have tried my best to be as accurate as possible in the data presented in the app, it is quite possible that errors might have crept in.
Please feel free to let me know in case of any oversight/incorrectness and I will try my best to address them as soon as possible.
The app just matches the characters based on the Unicode blocks of a language. Note that in many cases, how a glyphs for a character is transliterated may not directly correspond to the pronunciation of that character in the source language. In all such cases, the app gives precedence to what the character matches to in the Unicode block than to the exact pronunciation.
In cases where such pronunciation discrepancies turn up, I have tried to add some helpful notes under the details of that letter (long press a letter to see its details).
When the app is first launched, you are given the option to download the data file for a language of your choice. Later, if you decide to check out other languages, you can manage the data files in the Settings screen.
In the letters tab of the app, you can choose the language you wish to learn from the " Language" drop down. The app will now display all the characters of the selected language. From the "Convert To" drop down, you can choose a language you know. Now, you can tap lightly on a character to see what it looks like in the second language you chose (the one you know). Tap longer (touch and hold) on a character to see more detailed information about that character.
Here, you can copy in text in one of the languages for which you have downloaded data files for and transliterate it into a different language of your choice. Note, the app tries to preserve and use the corresponding letter of the second language where possible (even if the a letter is pronounced different in that language). The idea here is to help the user recognise the letter in the source script.
To use the practice tab effectively, it is recommended to install a keyboard that supports at least two languages - one that you wish to learn and another that you know. I recommend the "Indic Keyboard" by "Indic Project" available in the Play Store and F-Droid. In the practice tab, choose a script you wish to learn and a script that you know. Next you can choose a suitable practice type and test your knowledge by entering characters in the script that you already know.
References for example words and their meanings:
