Beary Academy starts dictionary project

It is expected to be compiled and published in a year

Karnataka Beary Sahitya Academy took its maiden steps here recently towards publishing the first Beary dictionary.

The dictionary, which will contain at least 30,000 Beary words that will be explained in both Kannada and English, is expected to take nearly a year to compile and publish, said B.A. Mohammad Hanif, president of the academy, at the inaugural ceremony here recently.

The academy hopes that the dictionary will serve as a linguistic bedrock for the language that is spoken by 15 lakh people across South coastal Karnataka and the Middle East. In June itself, the academy had consulted with Tulu and Kannada experts who had brought out dictionaries in the two languages, to chalk out the strategies in collecting Beary words. “We will publish it as a book as well as make it accessible through social media so that its reach is widespread,” said Mr. Hanif.

Pradeep Kumar Kalkura, who launched the project, said the dictionary was a big step in the preservation of the language. “We are steadily seeing Kannada words being replaced gradually by English terms. A dictionary is needed to preserve these words for posterity and encourage people to start identifying simple items around the house in their native language instead of using English terms,” he said.

The Beary-Kannada-English dictionary would assimilate the minority language in the country’s cultural landscape, he said.

Noted computer linguist K.P. Rao will aide the team develop software for compilation and transliteration, while B.M. Ichlamgodu will be the editor of the book.

At the ceremony, Kannada scholar A.V. Navada, who was conferred the Kanaka Shree Award recently, was felicitated. “

The dictionary is important if the language is to maintain its independence. Beary language is vanishing, and there should be an effort to encourage people to converse in the language,” he said.