Microsoft India recently announced the availability of new phonetic keyboards in Indian languages to members of the Windows Insider Program. The new feature is available in 10 Indian languages including Hindi, Bangla, Tamil, Marathi, Punjabi, Gujarati, Odia, Telugu, Kannada, and Malayalam.
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.
The new Indic Phonetic keyboards have been added to Windows Insider Preview Build 18272 and are in addition to the Indic Traditional INSCRIPT keyboards that are already available.
To set up and use Indic Phonetic keyboards, you’d need to head to Time & Language in Settings, select the language, and add the preferred 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.
Once finalized, the keyboards are expected to be added to Windows 10 later, subsequent to which Indian language users won’t need to download and install any external Input Method Editors (IMEs) to input Indic text in a phonetic style.
