Multilingual Dictionary for Kannada, Malayalam, Tamil, Telugu and English PDF

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Multilingual Dictionary for Kannada, Malayalam, Tamil, Telugu and English* DR.V.SARATCHANDRAN NAIR, Retired Professor,Central Institute of Indian Languages,Mysore Former Project Director,National translation Mission,(CIIL),Mysore Current Address:M-1136,Prashanti,5th Main,Vivekanandanagar, Kuvempunag...

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Multilingual Dictionary for Kannada, Malayalam, Tamil, Telugu and English* DR.V.SARATCHANDRAN NAIR, Retired Professor,Central Institute of Indian

Languages,Mysore

Former Project Director,National translation Mission,(CIIL),Mysore Current Address:M-1136,Prashanti,5th Main,Vivekanandanagar, Kuvempunagar.P.O,Mysore-570023(Mobile:91- 9845782834

0.India is a multilingual Country from time immemorial and the need for creating interaction among Indians across various languages has become an impediment

and

there is a need for developing tools and materials for better interaction and is a necessity.Undoubtedly,Sanskrit played a significant role in forging a common culture among

Indians

through

the

epic

creations

such

as

Ramayana

,

Mahabharata,Bhagavatam etc .Even today, even in the hinterland of the country, these literary creations are existing in various hues, in various art forms and is a binding force in our ethos.Similarly one can see the Mughal culture extending through out the length and the breadth of the country, when they ruled a major part of the country and then came the British rule, whose role in imparting education in English was significant and even today it`s impact could be seen, for the Indians to connect to each other and it has become the lingua franca of the large section of the population.One Indian may interact with another Indian in these languages. But they may not interact in their mothertongues unless and until the other is familiar with it,rather they prefer to use English or Hindi.All the literary works in regional languages get translated into English first and later in to the regional languages. However, there are quite a few bilingual writers, who directly translate in to the other`s language. During the national struggle for Independence, Mahatma Gandhiji advocated for

Hindi and it

became the

common language and after Independence in 1947 , it was declared as the official

language of the Union and English was declared as the Associate official language . However, now and then

language issues

erupt and become an emotive issue of

identity.But,a large section of the population of India has a pragmatic view of tolerence and are willing to learn and use other languages and one can see more multilinguals than ever before ( See the Census of India ,2001,Unni).One could see also intense regionalisation.More for an authochthonous movement (protection and preservation of indigenous culture) ,which has seen the use of one language in a particular regional state .The recent Kannada movement in Bangalore Metro .Use of only sign boards in kannada ( may be politically motivated),removal of Hindi and English. On a larger scale, one could see that many directions are arising out of state governments is to appease the masses and for political gain, the use of a regional language.However,the requirement of documents across states to be translated have also been accentuated. This has resulted in tools such as multilingual dictionaries and if it is computer friendly, it is all the more better.So it is in this direction the present mutlilingual dictionary has been prepared. 1..This is in continuation of the series of bilingual and trilingual dictionaries1 prepared by myself with the support of the former colleagues in the Southern Regional Language Centre ,Central Institute of Indian languages ,Mysore,while I was serving as the Principal of the Centre .When I took over charge as the Project Director of National Translation ,CIIL, I further extended and uploaded in the website of the National Translation Mission2(www.ntm.org.in) as it enhances the translation activity across Indian Languages and we have been getting immense support from the translators for this particular tool.Now and then I get request from various agencies regarding the Dictionaries,particularly from the people ,who are involved in translation activity.No doubt, that there is a genuine need for these dictionaries from the common people.It is

in this context that I thought of working for a common Multilingual Dictionary of Malayalam,Tamil,Telugu and Kannada, which is user friendly and which is easily accessible . The larger goal is to prepare an App for

the four languages as a

MULTILINGUAL DICTIONARY, which could be used in a smart phone and available easily.

2. Review of the Online Malayalam Dictionaries: We are well aware that there are multiple agencies working towards this goal and let us take a review of some of them and discuss their advantages and disadvantages and evaluate them. “ഓളം” is a well sought after English-Malayalam online dictionary, which is very much used.While compiling the dictionary they were seeking the help of the public to contribute word equivalents for the given English word and then reviewing it

and

compiling,which

has

resulted

in

the

number

of

equivalents

in

Malayalam,sometimes with out any logical connections .See for instance for the word “fall” in English for a grammatical category like Noun the equivalent provided is /patanam/ ,which is fine,but the verb /varuka/ is the first entry,which is absolutely wrong and unacceptable.The next word equivalents treated as verbs

are

വീഴുക,ചായുക,തളരുക,വാടുക,താഴുക,തകരുക,ചരിയുക,വീഴ്ച,പരാജയം,വർഷം. The last three equivalents provided are nouns,which is a grave mistake for a dictionary and then the primary meaning given is വരുക rather than വീഴുക .A reverse translation for the above words would be as given in brackets on),തളരുക(becometired),വാടുക(fade),താഴുക(sink

: ചായുക(lean

or

go

down),തകരുക(collapse),ചരിയുക(to fall from a vertical position) ,വീഴ്ച(fallen) ,പരാജയം(defeat),വർഷം(year,rain).A

perusal

of

these

meanings

and

the

classification of these categories show that it is not prepared on a scientific basis .Merely by compiling words would not make a dictionary.The entire dictionary is prepared in a similar fashion. Of course the dictionary compiler should be appreciated for the technical expertise ,which has been made use of and it is understood that Google is also utilizing such a dictionary for it`s translation activities.Suppose one requests for a word equivalent like “Bison” and if it is not found in the dictionary,you will get a request for filling it up and helping the dictionary maker.It goes to the evaluator in the Dictionary making Unit and later may or maynot be added.You are looking for a word since you did not know the equivalent.There is no particular guidance for the genuineness of the form selected by them and no literature available of the Principles involved in it. (Olam owned by Kailash Nadh / App by Vishnu.S ,2015 Olam.in).The software is designed by Syamu Vellanad3,Kerala . The

other

three

online

dictionaries

available

are

English=Malayalam

Dictionary,Malayalam-English Dictionary and Malayalam –Malayalam Polysemous Dictionary and named as “bhaʂaamitram nighaɳʈu”,brought by CDIT in 2017.It consists of 99,003 English words with Malayalam meanings,32,570 Malayalam words with English meanings and Malayalam words with polysemous words.A perusal of the English-Malayalam Dictionary shows that the English words given are not lexemes but are English phrases,whose explanation is given in Malayalam and starting with the alphabet ‘a’ there are several entries like ‘a bad egg’,meaning a useless person.which could have been better entered with out the article ‘a’,the reason being there are several entries with ‘a’ itself. A person searching would try in the search option with ‘bad egg’ and not ‘a bad egg’ or for ‘heap of straw’ would look for words beginning with ‘h’ and not ‘a’,which goes against the lexicographic principles. Of course while using the expression it ought to be with ‘a’ such as ‘a heap of straw’ or ‘a heavy hand’.It

also provides the pronunciation of the English words with a native speaker with a correct accent,which is welcome sign .However the Malayalam –English did not have this facility,probably with the expectation that it will be referred by Malayalees only.It would be ideal if the Malayalam words are also recorded and made available.This would be much beneficial to the non-native Malayalees and non native speakers, who are learning Malayalam.The dictionary enlisting the polysemous words is very helpful but it also lacks in it`s organisation or the concepts of wordnet and interrelations of words could have been done. Instead of /baahyam/, /puRam/ would have been the ideal antonym. There are several instances like this. The exemplification with a sentence is really good. 3. Multilingual Dictionaries:The earlier Bilingual and Trilingual Dictionaries which have been prepared were brought together for easy reference and extraction of information.The theoretical basis on which these dictionaries have been prepared are available in the introduction to these 8 volumes published by CIIL. The multilingual dictionary would facilitate a person to check simultaneously in the four South Indian languages such as Malayalam, ,Tamil,Telugu,Kannada.In the left hand corner of the popup menu by clicking any of the four languages the computer would display the source language and the lexical items .Once you double click the lexical item ,in the menu box the other target languages are displayed.Anybody could easily read the lexical items in all the four languages.This would be very useful for the use in the work related to language teaching and language learning and also in word sense disambiguation.Comprehensive multilingual lexical knowledge bases are vital for it.The following screen shots display the Multilingual Dictionary under preparation:

Conclusion: In conclusion we could say that this paper is a presentation of a model of a Multilingual Dictionary under preparation.Comments and criticisms are welcome.

REFERENCES: 1.SARATCHANDRAN ,2011: www.ntm.org.in Dictionaries

Resources >Dictionaries>Link to

2.SARATCHANDRAN(2011):Malayalam-EnglishDictionary(reversible) ,CIIL,Mysore ,,

Malayalam-Kannada Dictionary(reversible)

,,

Malayalam-Tamil Dictionary (Reversible)

,,

Malayalam-Telugu Dictionary(reversible)

3. Syamu Vellanad :Malayalam Dictionary(http://olam.in) 4.Bhashaamitram nighantu (2017) :CDIT,Trivandrum.

*Paper to be presented at NATIONAL SEMINAR ON INDIAN LANGUAGE

TECHNOLOGY: STATE AND PROSPECTS (Three days) 21-23 March 2018

Technology and Resource Centre for Malayalam, Department of Linguistics University of Kerala, Kariavattom, Trivandrum...