Gmail the email service from Google will turn 5 years old tomorrow. The email which started as an invite only has captured a large userbase in the 5 years that its been around. Even in India it was said to be catching on to Yahoo mail very quickly.
Google over the last couple of years has introduced many language centric features. Even for Gmail Google had introduced Gmail in Hindi at first but then Google made it available in all major languages of India including اردو (Urdu) , मराठी (Marathi), हिन्दी (Hindi), বাংলা (Bangla), ગુજરાતી (Gujarati), (Oriya), தமிழ் (Tamil), తెలుగు (Telugu), ಕನ್ನಡ (Kannada) and മലയാളം (Malayalam).
But this was just limited to the viewing of the emails in a particular language. One could still not compose an email in a regional language. This has been introduced by Gmail now with compose mail option in Hindi, தமிழ் (Tamil), తెలుగు (Telugu), ಕನ್ನಡ (Kannada) and മലയാളം (Malayalam).
This new feature was built using Google’s transliteration technology, which is also available on Google India Labs, Orkut, Blogger and iGoogle.
All in all this does seem a step ahead to make Gmail as the last mile email provider which can be used by rural folks as well. Especially the language preference in south India is quite strong and that explains why 4 out of the 5 languages introduced are from south India.
