National Language Authority - Key Activities

Key Activities

The institution has published a wide range of general, scientific and technical dictionaries and an Urdu Thesaurus. Especially, the Qaumi English-Urdu Dictionary has been based on Webster's Dictionary. A vast amount of literature has also been produced to encourage reading habits among children.

In 1980, the Authority standardised the Urdu keyboard layout for typewriters based on Naskh script. Later on, with the arrival of the digital age, the layout was improved for teleprinters and Information processing. Subsequently, in 1998 efforts were initiated to standardize Urdu encoding, which resulted in the formation of Urdu Zabta Takhti (اردو ضابطہ تختی) (UZT). This development was inline with the efforts to cope with the emerging demands of Urdu applications from word processing to mega-scale projects such as Computerised National Identity Cards by NADRA and a number of E-Governance initiatives by the national government. In July 2000, UZT 1.01 was standardised for all kinds of electronic computing, communications, and storage. Based on this version, Urdu language support was incorporated into the Versions 3.1 and 4.0 of Unicode. Localization of Microsoft applications like Windows and Office in Urdu is also done by then NLA, now NLPD.

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Famous quotes containing the words key and/or activities:

    The key to the age may be this, or that, or the other, as the young orators describe; the key to all ages is—Imbecility: imbecility in the vast majority of men, at all times, and even in heroes, in all but certain eminent moments: victims of gravity, customs and fear. This gives force to the strong,—that the multitude have no habit of self-reliance or original action.
    Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)

    Juggling produces both practical and psychological benefits.... A woman’s involvement in one role can enhance her functioning in another. Being a wife can make it easier to work outside the home. Being a mother can facilitate the activities and foster the skills of the efficient wife or of the effective worker. And employment outside the home can contribute in substantial, practical ways to how one works within the home, as a spouse and as a parent.
    Faye J. Crosby (20th century)