Hacks Does Kindle read Hindi language?

[geekyworld]

A big HELLO! I'm from India and this is my first post in this forum.

I want to gift my father a basic Kindle because reading on the PC LCD display hurts his eyes. He reads English and Hindi ebooks. While English is not a problem, I want to know if Kindle displays Hindi text properly.

To display Hindi two extra things are required. 1. Unicode support and 2. Complex script support.

I have a request. Please download the attached UTF-8 encoded Hindi text file and load it in your Kindle. Take a screenshot and post it here. It will help me determine if Hindi displays correctly in Kindle.

Thanks,

Swapnil

[Doitsu]

The Kindle fonts support Hindi, but, AFAIK, the rendering engine cannot handle Unicode vowel signs that logically follow the base letter but need to be displayed left of it.

Have a close look at the two screenshots and check the display of vowel signs that need to be displayed left oft the base letter because they'll most likely be displayed right of it.

The screenshots were taken with an older K3, but, AFAIK, the latest Kindle model cannot handle the complex scripts used in India either, and since Hindi is not one of the officially supported languages, it's not very likely that this will change in the future.

EDIT: Only the new KF8 format (.azw3) supports Devanagari. Make sure to select AZW3 as the output format when converting books with Calibre.

[geekyworld]

Thanks a zillion Doitsu! I'm really grateful for your timely help.

As can be seen in the screenshots, Hindi (Devanagari script) is rendered correctly even in the older Kindle 3. I have gone over the screenshots minutely and cannot find any misplaced vowels (called matras in Hindi). Everything is rendered as it should be. The default font is not very pretty, but I'm sure that can be changed with a hack.

This is great news indeed because this means all the languages that use the Devanagari script like Sanskrit, Hindi, Marathi, Konkani, Nepali etc. can be rendered correctly on Kindles even though they are not officially supported.

When I buy my Kindle I'll do a similar survey for all the Indic languages also.

Originally Posted by Doitsu

The Kindle fonts support Hindi, but, AFAIK, the rendering engine cannot handle Unicode vowel signs that logically follow the base letter but need to be displayed left of it.

Have a close look at the two screenshots and check the display of vowel signs that need to be displayed left oft the base letter because they'll most likely be displayed right of it.

The screenshots were taken with an older K3, but, AFAIK, the latest Kindle model cannot handle the complex scripts used in India either, and since Hindi is not one of the officially supported languages, it's not very likely that this will change in the future.

[shashanktiw]

Hi Geekyworld

i know its been few months
I wanted to did u find ur answer about hindi in Kindle
Are you using the kindle and erading hindi books in that.????

Originally Posted by geekyworld

Thanks a zillion Doitsu! I'm really grateful for your timely help.

As can be seen in the screenshots, Hindi (Devanagari script) is rendered correctly even in the older Kindle 3. I have gone over the screenshots minutely and cannot find any misplaced vowels (called matras in Hindi). Everything is rendered as it should be. The default font is not very pretty, but I'm sure that can be changed with a hack.

This is great news indeed because this means all the languages that use the Devanagari script like Sanskrit, Hindi, Marathi, Konkani, Nepali etc. can be rendered correctly on Kindles even though they are not officially supported.

When I buy my Kindle I'll do a similar survey for all the Indic languages also.

[Orn8one]

What does the red boxed "hacks" that you see on the thread list beside this thread mean?
Thank you

[zxczxc]

the person who started the thread assumed a hack might be needed for kindle to allow it to read hindi etc, but this is not the case
nothing to worry about!

[tapish.mrd]

Could you please tell me where I can get the whole of this version of "Do Bailo Ki kataha"?

I loved the new version of it written in this example script

[Doitsu]

Originally Posted by tapish.mrd

Could you please tell me where I can get the whole of this version of "Do Bailo Ki kataha"?

It's been a while since I created this test file, but, AFAIK, I used the Wikisource text.

BTW, Amazon has added the Google Noto Sans fonts (Bengali, Devanagari, Gujarati, Kannada, Malayalam, Tamil and Telugu) to the firmware versions of current Kindle models.

[tapish.mrd]

A huge Thanks for the Source of the book....and I would attach the one I created

do bailoN kii kthaa - MasterMind.mobi

This one works on Kindle...and awesome Story

Originally Posted by Doitsu

It's been a while since I created this test file, but, AFAIK, I used the Wikisource text.

BTW, Amazon has added the Google Noto Sans fonts (Bengali, Devanagari, Gujarati, Kannada, Malayalam, Tamil and Telugu) to the firmware versions of current Kindle models.

[pdurrant]

You could upload your conversion of the Wikisource text to the MobileRead library.

[uttarandtt]

Can anyone confirm if the kindle voyage has custom bengali font (e.g. "kalpurush") support or not? I tried with kindle paperwhite, with kalpurush bengali font, it does not display the words properly.

[Doitsu]

Originally Posted by uttarandtt

Can anyone confirm if the kindle voyage has custom bengali font (e.g. "kalpurush") support or not? I tried with kindle paperwhite, with kalpurush bengali font, it does not display the words properly.

All current Kindle models (6th generaton Kindle Paperwhite (AKA Paperwhite 2) and higher) with the latest firmware come with Indic Google Noto Sans fonts (Bengali, Devanagari, Gujarati, Kannada, Malayalam, Tamil and Telugu). I.e., you shouldn't have to embed any font at all as long as you convert your epubs to AZW3 books with Calibre.