India’s Indian Language Content Explosion
The Indian language internet has been growing at an increasingly rapid pace, with a shift towards the vernacular that has steadily been changing the nature of the Indian internet as a whole. Indian languages have been making their presence felt with an ever increasing confidence.
In the last few years in particular, there has been an explosion in content in Indian languages. There have been multiple factors at play here – cheaper handsets, cheaper data, a greater demand for such content, and more!
Companies are finally waking up to the fact that the 330 million strong Indian language user base cannot be ignored if you are to build for and serve the Indian internet. Many of them have started ensuring that their platforms – both sites and apps – are accessible to Indian language internet users.
Since these platforms are first built using English, making them Indian language friendly involves converting this content into Indian languages, something which is part of the larger process of localisation. Content conversion involves translation, where translators convert text in one language into another language, while retaining the meaning of the original content.
The Indian Translation Market
Translation agencies are usually roped in to help companies convert their platforms from English to Indian languages. While this arrangement has worked so far, this current growth in Indian language content will require a rapid scaling up of these efforts. Agencies and companies both need to anticipate this massive demand that will exist in the market in the near future.
The Indian translation marketplace however, needs to evolve to be able to handle such demand without sacrificing accuracy. There is a lot of chaos involved, and there is no organized marketplace for translations as of yet.
Qualified, skilled translators do not have platforms to look for work where they can also build a brand of their own as they finish projects.
Reliability has always been another issue. Turn around times for projects can fluctuate, thanks to multiple factors, including familiarity with tech used, and even the availability of resources.
These large volumes of content include plenty of jargon and new terms that do not have one-to-one correspondences in Indian languages, because they are not used by native speakers of these languages. Terms like logistics, settings, cash on delivery, etc. Translators end up having to translate these terms afresh each time, and often there are no commonly agreed upon translations of these words.
In addition, it is quite difficult for freelancers to advance beyond part time translation and become professionals.
Translation, after all, is a subjective art. Its connect and impact mainly depends on the larger context of the content and its purpose, as well as the audience it’s targeted towards.
With this level of disorganization, how can we ensure that the translation industry will be up to the challenge of meeting this demand?
Introducing Prabandhak
To address this gap, we’ve developed Prabandhak, an organized translation marketplace for Indian languages. It ensures that the Indian translation industry can expand at the scale required to meet this rising demand in Indian language content, without having to sacrifice accuracy.
Prabandhak also helps translators ensure their translations stay relevant to the domain and audience their current project targets. By maintaining a high level of domain relevance, including industry jargon and terms, Prabandhak helps translators make content speak to its end users even in Indian languages.
Conclusion
The Indian language internet is growing and will continue to grow. A large chunk of the content its users need will come for translations. Translation from English into Indian languages will become an increasingly important skill over time, as companies acknowledge this shift in consumer preferences and scramble to provide for it.
Let’s make sure the translation industry rises up to this challenge.
