The early European missionaries who came to India contributed a great deal to the discipline of lexicography in Indian languages. However, as the British gained politically and English became the language of power, most works in other European tongues faded into insignificance.
Rediscovered
Two such forgotten lexicons of historic and linguistic importance — Kannada-to-Latin and Latin-to-Kannada dictionaries — compiled by Catholic priests of The Paris Foreign Mission Society in the mid-19th century have recently been discovered in the archives of St. Mary's Basilica, the oldest church in Bangalore.
The first, Dictionarium Canarense-Latinum , was compiled by Jean-Marie Auguste Bouteloup in 1855, and the second, Dictionarium Latino-Canarense , by Etienne Louis Charbonnaux in 1861.
To this day, these are the only dictionaries that translate directly from Kannada to Latin and vice versa. Both mention ‘Bengalori' as the place where they were printed. The latter has now been reprinted by the Akhila Karnataka Catholic Christara Kannada Sangha, after 149 years, and will be released in August.
C. Marie Joseph, who is on the editorial board of the reprinted dictionary, said that interestingly, the compilers of the dictionaries do not mention their names, but the authorship has been deduced from church records.
Father Bouteloup was in charge of the printing press set up in Bangalore by the mission and authored more than 13 books in Kannada, besides the dictionary. Reverend Charbonnaux served as Bishop of Mysore and was known for his charity work in the Mysore region.
Language of liturgy
According to Fr. Arulappa, rector of the basilica, the dictionaries were necessary at a time when Latin was still the language of liturgy. It was only after the Second Vatican Council of 1962 that local languages gained greater importance.
“Missionaries who came here had to know both Latin and the local language,” Fr. Arulappa said.
The dictionaries fall short on academic rigour given their limited scope. K.V. Narayan, linguist and scholar, says the authors do not seem to be fully aware of the distinct identity of the Kannada language. Rev. Charbonnaux's introduction to Kannada was through Tamil, having first arrived in Pondicherry, and he assumed that Kannada was a “mixed language” which borrowed from Telugu and Tamil.
The lack of erudition, however, does not diminish the importance of the lexicons.
“Those were times when the printed form of the text was not yet standardised. Rev. Charbonnaux relied on the spoken language. This makes it not only an important historical document, but also a very useful tool in the study of the evolution of the spoken language,” Dr. Narayan says.
Mr. Joseph said the lexicons are of value to students of theology, language and history.
Dr. Narayan, however, felt that the publishers of the second edition could have revised and re-printed the dictionary using language and fonts more accessible to a reader today, rather than present a photo-copied version of the old one.
Mr. Joseph said he hoped this task would be taken up by a team of language experts.
