indic-language-utils

Provider-neutral foundations for Indian language operations in Python.

indic-language-utils standardizes language detection, translation, transliteration, speech, script identification, and text processing across Indian languages. It abstracts cloud and local engines behind shared interfaces.

Key Features

• Provider Neutrality: Code against high-level capability interfaces. Swap, configure, or chain providers without changing text processing or domain code.
• Text Translation: Translate plain text or complex Markdown documents across 22 scheduled Indian languages and English.
• Text Language Detection: Identify languages using offline FastText classification (lid.176.ftz) or cloud inference pipelines via Bhashini.
• Transliteration: Convert between Roman script and native Indic scripts via Bhashini or Aksharamukha.
• Speech to text: Transcribe audio with Bhashini, Sarvam, local Faster-Whisper, or keyless Google Speech.
• Text to speech: Generate audio with Bhashini, Sarvam, or Edge TTS and pass model-specific voice settings.
• Script Identification: Fast, zero-dependency Unicode script identification across 12+ Indic scripts and Latin.
• Document and Code Protection: Structural pre-processors and post-processors protect headings, bullet markers, inline code spans, URLs, and code blocks from neural translation corruption.
• Resilient Execution: Automatic multi-provider fallback routing, bounded concurrency limits per provider, and exponential backoff retries with jitter.
• High-Performance Caching: In-memory LRU and multi-process SQLite caches with write-ahead logging (WAL mode) and stampede protection.
• Canonical Normalization: Shared language registry recognizing all 22 Eighth Schedule Indian languages plus English, mapping aliases and regional codes to BCP 47.
• Localization Catalogs: Match reviewed human translations for critical UI strings before dispatching to neural engines.

Getting started

Install the core package with pip install indic-language-utils. Provider selection is explicit, and local detection requires an optional extra. The installation and quick start guide covers a credential-free setup, Bhashini configuration, and the first detection and translation calls.

Supported Providers

Configuration

The library uses a tiered configuration system combining project TOML files (.indic-language-utils.toml), environment variables, and programmatic overrides.

Example .indic-language-utils.toml:

[cache]
enabled = true
backend = "sqlite"
path = ".cache/translations.sqlite3"
max_entries = 50000
ttl_seconds = 86400

[retry]
max_attempts = 3
base_delay_seconds = 0.25
max_delay_seconds = 5.0

[providers.bhashini]
endpoint = "https://dhruva-api.bhashini.gov.in/services/inference/pipeline"
translation_service_id = "default-translation-model-id"
detection_service_id = "default-tld-model-id"
transliteration_service_id = "default-transliteration-model-id"
max_concurrency = 8

[providers.sarvam]
endpoint = "https://api.sarvam.ai"
model = "sarvam-translate:v1"
stt_model_id = "saaras:v4"
tts_model_id = "bulbul:v3"
max_concurrency = 8

[routes]
translation = ["sarvam", "bhashini", "googletrans"]
text_language_detection = ["sarvam", "bhashini", "fasttext"]
transliteration = ["bhashini", "aksharamukha"]
speech_to_text = ["bhashini", "sarvam", "google_free", "faster_whisper"]
text_to_speech = ["bhashini", "sarvam", "edge_tts"]

Supply credentials securely through environment variables:

export BHASHINI_API_KEY="your-bhashini-api-key"
export SARVAM_API_KEY="your-sarvam-api-key"

Documentation

Comprehensive guides are available in the documentation site:

• Installation and Quick Start: Provider setup and first calls.
• Provider Reference: Capability matrix, setup requirements, and fallback behavior.
• User Guide: Architecture overview, core capabilities, and usage styles.
• Translation Guide: Synchronous and asynchronous translation, Markdown preservation, and catalogs.
• Detection Guide: Local FastText and cloud Bhashini detection, script analysis, and candidate scoring.
• Speech to text guide: Bhashini and Sarvam transcription and model IDs.
• STT example: Transcribe audio with Bhashini or Sarvam.
• Text to speech guide: Bhashini and Sarvam synthesis and voice options.
• TTS example: Generate audio with Bhashini or Sarvam.
• Configuration Reference: Project TOML file formats, precedence rules, and environment variables.
• Processor Pipelines: Structural processors, segment processors, and custom pipeline authoring.
• Architecture Proposal: Design philosophy and ecosystem review.
• Changelog: Release history adhering to Keep a Changelog.

Development

Install the locked development environment with uv:

uv sync --dev
uv run pre-commit install

Run test suite, code quality checks, and local documentation server:

uv run ruff format --check .
uv run ruff check .
uv run mypy
uv run pytest
uv build
uv run mkdocs serve
uv run mkdocs build --strict

Interactive Testing Workbench

A local evaluation workbench and REST API server is included for testing translation, detection, transliteration, STT, and TTS interactively. The web assets are built from a source checkout and are not included in the Python wheel:

# Build the web interface
cd web && pnpm install && pnpm build && cd ..

# Launch the FastAPI server with static UI mounted at http://127.0.0.1:8000
uv run indic-server

Explore interactive API documentation at http://127.0.0.1:8000/docs.

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License.