Transliteration model
AI4Bharat
IndicXlit
The open neural model built at IIT Madras, bundled as-is. No proprietary wrapper, no fine-tuning tricks.
Your language.
Your keyboard.
Type the way it sounds in English. See words appear in Hindi, Tamil, Bengali, and eighteen more.
- iPhone & iPad
- 21 languages
- On-device, no tracking
HINDI · हिन्दी
Type
See
A quick look at what Akshar does, right on this page.
Twenty-one languages. One keyboard.
Every major Indian language.
And a few rarely seen.
Each language is coloured by its script family, drawn from the region it grew in.
Devanagari अ · Hindi, Marathi and five more
अ
Hindi
हिन्दी
अ
Marathi
मराठी
अ
Sanskrit
संस्कृत
अ
Nepali
नेपाली
अ
Konkani
कोंकणी
अ
Maithili
मैथिली
अ
Bodo
बड़ो
Dravidian South Indian scripts
அ
Tamil
தமிழ்
అ
Telugu
తెలుగు
ಅ
Kannada
ಕನ್ನಡ
അ
Malayalam
മലയാളം
Eastern Bengali and its neighbours
অ
Bengali
বাংলা
অ
Assamese
অসমীয়া
ଅ
Odia
ଓଡ଼ିଆ
ꯑ
Meitei
ꯃꯤꯇꯩ
Perso-Arabic Nastaliq, right to left
ا
Urdu
اردو
ا
Kashmiri
کٲشُر
ا
Sindhi
سنڌي
Others Gurmukhi, Gujarati, Sinhala
ਅ
Punjabi
ਪੰਜਾਬੀ
અ
Gujarati
ગુજરાતી
අ
Sinhala
සිංහල
Devanagari
Dravidian
Eastern
Gurmukhi
Perso-Arabic
Gujarati
Sinhala
Built for a multilingual country
India doesn’t speak one language. It speaks twenty-two.
One in four Indians holds a second language. One in fourteen holds a third. The grandmother in Tamil, the boss in Hindi, the friend in Bengali, the chat in English. Akshar was shaped to keep up with that rhythm.
Figures from the Census of India, 2011.
26%
of Indians are bilingual
7%
speak three or more languages
22
scheduled languages in the Constitution
121
languages with 10,000+ speakers
How it works
Three steps. No learning curve.
1
Pick a language
Choose the one you grew up speaking. Or enable several and rotate through them. A tap is all it takes.
2
Type the way it sounds
Spell it in English the way it sounds aloud. “Namaste”, “vanakkam”, “dhonnobad”. Akshar finds the right script instantly.
3
Tap a suggestion
Three smart guesses sit above the keys. Tap one, or press space and the top pick auto-fills. That’s it.
Why this matters
Because the way most people type isn’t the way they speak.
Millions of Indians type their own languages in English letters every day, because the stock keyboards make anything else painful. Akshar flips that. Type as it sounds, see it as it’s written, send it in the script the reader actually expects.
21
Indian languages, one keyboard
12
scripts, one tap apart
<30ms
typical suggestion speed
5
widget sizes, across Lock and Home
English in, script out
Typed one way, sent the way it was meant.
Hindi
namaste bhai, kaise ho
नमस्ते भाई, कैसे हो
Tamil
vanakkam amma, saapta
வணக்கம் அம்மா, சாப்ட்டியா
Bengali
kemon acho
কেমন আছো
Urdu
aap kaise hain
آپ کیسے ہیں
Same keystrokes. The receiver just sees the writing they grew up reading.
The keyboard
Feels native.
Writes in your language.
Install once, then it shows up everywhere the system keyboard does. Messages, mail, notes, browser, any app that takes text. Seamless across every app.
Language button, right on the keys
A dedicated language button sits in the bottom row. One tap rotates through the languages enabled in Settings, mid-sentence.
Smart punctuation
Straight quotes turn into curly “smart” ones. Two hyphens become an en-dash. Double-space drops a full stop. Hold the rupee key for ₹, $, €, £, ¥.
Toolbar sized to your thumb
The suggestion toolbar above the keys comes in small, standard, large, or extra-large. Sound and haptics are toggles, not compromises.
Notes & Convert
Two tools built into the app,
for when the keyboard alone isn’t enough.
Notes for longer writing. Convert for reading scripts you don’t know yet. Both live inside Akshar, both work offline.
Notes
Write freely, save automatically.
A proper notes app that transliterates as you type. Star the ones you love, search through them all, and share them as images with the script’s accent colour baked in.
Convert
Go both ways, instantly.
English in, script out. Script in, readable English back. Useful for reading a message from a cousin in their own script, or a shop sign in a new city.
Share notes as artwork
Not just a screenshot.
A piece to send.
Any note can be exported as an image. The script is set in its native font, the accent is drawn from its family, the background carries the same palette. Drop it into WhatsApp, Instagram Stories, a group chat, or save it to Photos.
Typography that honours the script
Devanagari gets serif, Tamil gets its rounded glyphs, Urdu gets Nastaliq. Line height, tracking, and optical sizing tuned per family.
Palette drawn from the region
Vermillion for Devanagari, temple gold for Dravidian, lotus pink for Eastern, lapis for Perso-Arabic. Seven palettes in all, matching the languages page.
A small, considered signature
An understated mark, the initial letter in the chosen script, sits in the corner. Turn it off in Settings if the image is better without it.
Regenerate until it feels right
A small “try another” button reshuffles the texture and composition without touching the text. The rendered image ships as PNG or JPEG, no server involved.
Widgets · Control Centre · Share Sheet · Shortcuts
One tap away
from everywhere on the phone.
Drop Akshar on the Lock Screen, Home Screen, or Control Centre. Send text from any app through the Share Sheet. Ask Siri to convert the clipboard. Long-press the icon for a quick jump.
A few more screens
The settings,
where you make it yours.
Settings, languages, icons, privacy.
Make it yours
An app icon
in your script.
Pick the one that speaks to you. Change it any time from inside the app.
Themes
Three ways to wear it on your home screen.
Saffron Classic
The Roman “A” blending into the Devanagari “अ”. The keyboard’s quiet signature.
Classic
The Roman “A” blending into the Devanagari “अ”.
Ashoka
Sky and ocean blue behind the A-to-अ blend, with a small sparkle. A softer take on the signature.
Script series
A Saffron for every script you read in.
Pick the one closest to the script of your daily reading. The icon stays on the home screen, even while the keyboard switches languages mid-sentence.
Accessibility
Built so everyone can write.
Akshar follows the iOS accessibility system, from the smallest tap target to the longest screen-reader label. The keyboard inherits your accessibility settings.
VoiceOver
Every key, suggestion, and control has a hand-written label and hint. Indic scripts are announced in the right language, so VoiceOver reads them naturally.
Larger Text
Dynamic Type throughout. Text scales past 200% into the largest Accessibility sizes, and layouts reflow instead of clipping.
Dark Interface
A full dark scheme across every screen, menu, and control. Easier on the eyes at night, and honest to the default on most iPhones.
Differentiate Without Color Alone
Every coloured action pairs with a shape, icon, or label. Red Delete also says Delete. Green Add also says Add.
Sufficient Contrast
Text and iconography clear 4.5:1 against their backgrounds. Settings icons run at 5:1, so the dim rows stay readable.
Reduced Motion
Every animation in the app respects Reduce Motion. Springs and slide-ins become quiet cross-fades, detected live, no restart needed.
Privacy first. Privacy always.
What you type never leaves your device.
The language model lives inside the app. No Akshar server behind it, no analytics, no “anonymous usage data”. Keystrokes never leave the device. The thing typed in Hindi to a cousin stays between the two of them.
keystrokes ever sent to an Akshar server
0
Akshar servers behind it
0
trackers or analytics
0
accounts to create
100%
on-device, always
Did you know
Shake your phone
for a little wisdom.
When the Notes or Convert screen is empty, a gentle shake surfaces a saying from Indian literature, poetry, or scripture - in its original script, with a meaning in English.
सर्वे भवन्तु सुखिनः
sarve bhavantu sukhinaḥ
May all beings everywhere be happy and free.
Technology
Three shoulders to stand on.
An open model from IIT Madras, Apple’s own inference stack, and a Swift framework that keeps the keyboard native all the way down. Nothing exotic, everything right-sized.
AI4Bharat
On-device inference
Apple
Core ML
Packaged as a Core ML model and run on the Neural Engine. Cold starts fast, warm inferences faster.
Keyboard framework
KeyboardKit
The Swift package that handles the keyboard-extension plumbing, so the feel stays exactly iOS-native.
Still curious?
Every single thing Akshar does, in one list.
A catalog of every keyboard setting, widget, Control Centre tile, icon, language smart, accessibility touch, and power-user hook. Organised by category, searchable at a glance.
See every featureApp Store
From people using it.
★★★★★
Better than the system keyboard
Supports more Indian languages than the system keyboard and is super fast and accurate. It is completely free as well. Kudos to the developer.
★★★★★
Keyboard is fantastic
Learnt about the integrated keyboard just recently and it works flawlessly. Such a simple case but the execution to fulfill it is great. Previously, the way to go was type in English, then Google Translate, then copy translated Indic text. But now everything happens with good accuracy right where you want it.
★★★★★
Game-changer for Indian language typing
Super smooth transliteration from English to Hindi, Tamil, Telugu and more, makes typing in native scripts effortless. Perfect for students.
★★★★★
A brilliant app with an intuitive interface
Brilliant app with great ease of use. Everything is simple to navigate, and the transliteration feature works really well, making it easy to write and switch between languages. Smooth, reliable, and very user-friendly. Highly recommended.
★★★★★
Good keyboard
I’ve been using this app for the past few days, and it’s amazing. It integrates with the keyboard and provides multiple language options, which is really helpful. It’s great to use.
★★★★★
Unique and useful app
I can now write paragraphs in my favourite language and this app made it easier.
★★★★★
Does the job well
The app looks modern and does exactly as advertised. Your use of the app depends on what you want out of it.
★★★★★
Helpful app
Easy Indian languages typing.
Even though I am an Android user, I have had first-hand experience as a spectator to iPhone keypad victims, and I can say one thing - you are doing god’s work brother.
This sounds cool. I technically can read and write Devanagari but it’s too hard on the phone. Nice initiative!
It’s very neat. Looks modern and the words are pretty accurate. I can only read Devanagari but this is good for forming sentences on my own. I lived my early childhood in Gujarat so I never even learnt proper Telugu schooling. I remember Devanagari the best. Hopefully I can learn Telugu past writing my own name సాత్విక్.
Very cool!
I had previously tried doing transliteration on the iOS keyboard and had hated it. But yours is just perfect. Everything works as expected and is intuitive.
This is the first time since I started using a smartphone that I’m writing in my native language. Finally it happened with your app.
This use case is game-changing. Just tried it - the layout, the ease of switching languages, and how intuitive it is. It’s perfect.
I love the micro-interactions: the haptic feedback, the subtle effects when tapping buttons. The onboarding and UX are great - it’s always clear what I need to do.
I also started using it. It’s very handy, and the font style is more attractive.
Gujarati works pretty well. I love the About page - very well written. And the features list looks really cool.
What a fantastic app. I was up and running, transliterating into Marathi within 10 seconds. Highly recommend.
The app looks incredibly promising, especially the shift to entirely on-device transliteration and your focus on supporting underserved languages.
It’s wonderful to see IndicXlit being used in such a practical and impactful way, especially with the entire model running on-device. Making transliteration available for all 21 Indian languages completely offline is perfect. The reverse transliteration feature is a nice addition as well.
Real reviews from the App Store, Reddit, and users.
Write. Finally.
A one-time install. No accounts. No noise. Pick your language.
iPhone
Optimised for iOS 18 and later, on every iPhone size.
Designed for iPad
Runs natively on iPad with the same on-device model and full keyboard support.
The maker
Designed and built by one person.
Akshar is independent software, designed and built by Krishna Permi in India.
Made in India 🇮🇳