Phonetic keyboards in Indian languages are available in 10 Indian languages including Hindi, Bangla, Tamil, Marathi, Punjabi, Gujarati, Odia, Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam. The Indic Phonetic keyboards are in addition to the Indic Traditional INSCRIPT keyboards already available with Windows.
The phonetic keyboards are available starting from Windows 10 May 2019 Update, and Indian language users won’t need to download and install any external Input Method Editors (IMEs) to input Indic text in a phonetic style.
The transliteration rules used in the keyboards are based on ISO 15919. Different with Indic INSCRIPT Keyboards, Indic Phonetic Keyboards are based on natural pronunciation and users can use it immediately without any learning cost. As words are typed using the existing keyboard, Indic Phonetic keyboards transliterate them to suggest possible Indic text options. For instance, if we type “namaste” using the Phonetic keyboard, it will automatically suggest नमस्ते /ਨਮਸਤੇ/ નમસ્તે in Hindi/Punjabi/Gujarati.
Add Indic Phonetic keyboards:
-
Go to Time & Language in Settings and select the language from the navigation menu.
-
Click on the + icon labelled and add the preferred Indic language (by selecting into the search box and select it – for example “Hindi” and click on the next button and install the Indic language on the device, which will then return to the Language page).
-
Go to language page, select the language and then click the options button to go to language options page.
-
Add the keyboard by clicking the + icon and then select the type of keyboard.
-
Lastly, enable the phonetic keyboard by clicking on the input indicator on the taskbar (or press the Windows key + Space) and select the Indic Phonetic keyboard.
It will take a few minutes to download Indic phonetic keyboard dictionary:
Dictionaries of Indic phonetic keyboards are available in Basic typing of FoD (features on demand). Once add an Indic phonetic keyboard, keyboard dictionary detection and downloading require the Windows Update to work from background.
After adding a new phonetic keyboard, keyboard dictionary will start downloading, and it could take a few minutes with internet connection. Before downloading finished, a pop-up toast remind will show. If IME is still not ready, please check your Internet connection. Please find more details on the language packages, features on demand and language features on demand below.
The next section is for those who cannot see successful downloads in the previous section. Manually download IME dictionaries:
-
Click the Cortana search box on the Start menu.
-
Type Command Prompt.
-
Right-Click Command Prompt in the results.
-
Click "Run as Administrator" on the popup menu.
-
Run the following command to install Indic basic typing FoD package.
-
Bangla: DISM /Online /Add-Capability /CapabilityName:Language.Basic~~~bn-IN~0.0.1.0
-
Gujarati: DISM /Online /Add-Capability /CapabilityName:Language.Basic~~~gu-IN~0.0.1.0
-
Hindi: DISM /Online /Add-Capability /CapabilityName:Language.Basic~~~hi-IN~0.0.1.0
-
Kannada: DISM /Online /Add-Capability /CapabilityName:Language.Basic~~~kn-IN~0.0.1.0
-
Malayalam: DISM /Online /Add-Capability /CapabilityName:Language.Basic~~~ml-IN~0.0.1.0
-
Marathi: DISM /Online /Add-Capability /CapabilityName:Language.Basic~~~mr-IN~0.0.1.0
-
Odia: DISM /Online /Add-Capability /CapabilityName:Language.Basic~~~or-IN~0.0.1.0
-
Punjabi: DISM /Online /Add-Capability /CapabilityName:Language.Basic~~~pa-IN~0.0.1.0
-
Tamil: DISM /Online /Add-Capability /CapabilityName:Language.Basic~~~ta-IN~0.0.1.0
-
Telugu: DISM /Online /Add-Capability /CapabilityName:Language.Basic~~~te-IN~0.0.1.0
-
