Generate Punjabi subtitles for your Malayalam videos

From the Malayalam script to Gurmukhi

Malayalam is written in the Malayalam script and Punjabi in Gurmukhi, so the exported file uses a different writing system from the audio that produced it. The subtitle formats handle that — SRT and VTT are plain text and carry any script — but the font in whatever plays the file has to cover it.

This is the most common reason a Punjabi subtitle track looks correct in an editor and shows boxes or blanks on a device. Test on the target platform before you publish a batch.

How Malayalam audio becomes Punjabi subtitles

Audio in Malayalam (മലയാളം) is transcribed first, then translated into Punjabi (ਪੰਜਾਬੀ). Because the translation runs on the transcript rather than on the audio, the Punjabi subtitle file keeps the timings of the original Malayalam speech — each line appears at the moment it was actually said.

Why translate Malayalam video into Punjabi

Malayalam is spoken principally in Kerala, in southern India; Punjabi in Indian Punjab, and in Pakistan where it is written in Shahmukhi. A Punjabi subtitle track is what lets one recording reach both audiences without re-recording, re-editing or dubbing it.

Because subtitles are a separate file rather than part of the picture, you can attach several language tracks to the same video and let viewers pick.

About the Malayalam audio

Malayalam builds long agglutinative words, which means individual subtitle lines run visually longer than the same sentence in a neighbouring language. Shorter blocks read better as a result.

About the Punjabi subtitles

Transcription here produces Gurmukhi, the script used in Indian Punjab. Punjabi spoken in Pakistan is conventionally written in the Perso-Arabic Shahmukhi script instead — the speech is largely mutually intelligible, but the two scripts are not interchangeable in a subtitle file.

What a Malayalam to Punjabi subtitle file looks like

Four lines of Malayalam speech, transcribed and translated, as they come out of the exported SRT. The timings are the Malayalam speaker's — translation does not move them, which is why the file drops onto the original video unchanged.

1
00:00:01,000 --> 00:00:03,240
ਸਾਰਿਆਂ ਨੂੰ ਸ਼ੁਭ ਸਵੇਰ।

2
00:00:03,600 --> 00:00:06,120
ਆਉਣ ਲਈ ਸਾਰਿਆਂ ਦਾ ਧੰਨਵਾਦ।

3
00:00:06,480 --> 00:00:09,300
ਕੀ ਤੁਹਾਨੂੰ ਮੈਂ ਸਾਫ਼ ਸੁਣਾਈ ਦੇ ਰਿਹਾ ਹਾਂ?

4
00:00:09,700 --> 00:00:12,040
ਮੈਂ ਥੋੜ੍ਹੀ ਦੇਰ ਵਿੱਚ ਵੇਰਵੇ ਸਾਂਝੇ ਕਰਾਂਗਾ।

What to check before publishing

• Names and places, which translation handles less reliably than ordinary prose.
• Idiom — a phrase that is natural in Malayalam may need loosening to read well in Punjabi.
• That Gurmukhi renders in your player, not just in the editor you exported from.
• Timing on fast exchanges, where two speakers overlap.