Information and Communication Technology Agency of Sri Lanka

Languaget should be optimized by IT: Prof. J. B. Dissanayake

Sinhala language far from being a dying language has many features that even some of the world languages lack. IT, a handmaid of the human mind, should be utilized to let the beauty of the language be optimized for the benefit of man. These views were expressed by Sri Lanka’s  Ambassador in  Thailand, Prof. J. B. Dissanayake at the launching of ‘Bhasita’, the Sinhala font family produced by the Information and Communication Technology Agency of Sri Lanka (ICTA) held in Colombo recently.

“The erudite linguist giving several examples of how the Sinhala language has facilities not found in many world languagesm,” he added.

Speaking further the veteran Sinhala scholar said that the human mind should instruct the computer as to what it should do. ICT is a tool. It should be a handmaid of man and not the other way round, the professor warned.

While Prof. J.B. Dissanayake gave the keynote address on the occasion several others also addressed the audience. ICTA’s chairman Prof. P. W. Epasinghe, several members of  University staff and journalists participated in the occasion.  A notable group among  the participants was a team from Royal College Colombo who have made a mark in the use of Sinhala in ICT. Software Bhashita was handed over to each of the participants by ICTA’s chairman Prof. P. W. Epasinghe.

Creating Unicode compatible font families. 

ICTA has identified the enabling of ICT in local languages, Sinhala and Tamil, as a priority area in the e-Sri Lanka initiative. ICTA is promoting the use of ICT in Sinhala and Tamil and is addressing issues relating to local language support such as standard keyboards, applications in Sinhala and Tamil, and fonts etc. At present there is a wide choice with regard to standards-based fonts in English, but very few Unicode compliant fonts are available.

The availability of a high quality, and standards-conformant ‘free’ Sinhala font would enable content providers to create Sinhala language content correctly with the full use of Unicode features, and for the interchange of correct Sinhala characters in the communication media.    There are many Unicode compliant English fonts, but not many Unicode compliant Sinhala fonts are available at present.  Therefore ICTA decided to develop a standards-based font and make it available users.

ICTA will make available the font Bhashita freely, but the license will be such that the font cannot be changed.

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