Orkut offers an automatic transliteration option in the scrapbook that converts Roman characters to the Devanāgarī characters used in Hindi. This lets you type Hindi words phonetically in English script and still have them appear in their correct alphabet.

How to enable the Transliteration Feature?

To enable Transliteration, first make sure that Hindi is listed in your “languages I speak” section:

# Visit your homepage and click the profile button under your photo.
# Next, click edit profile.
# On the general tab, find the languages i speak section and choose Hindi from the dropdown menu.
# Click update.

Once you’ve done that, you’ll see a new checkbox above the scrap box when you visit a scrapbook.

How do I type with Transliteration?

Use the checkbox to toggle the transliteration feature on and off (You can also use Ctrl-G). The letters of a word will appear as you type them until you reach the end of the word. Once you type a space or a punctuation mark, the letters will be converted to Devanāgarī characters. The transliteration feature attempts to accurately match the sounds of the letters between the two alphabets. If you find that it’s incorrect, however, you can fix it.

For more on Correcting Words, Saving Corrected Transliterations, visit Orkut’s Help Topic – How do I type scraps in Hindi?.

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