Dictionary co-authored by Isidore Dantas and late Joel D’Souza
DIGITAL BOOST
Modern Konkani-English dictionary was released under the 'Creative Commons' licence, and is freely available for users
The dictionary has been co-authored by Isidore Dantas and the late Joel D’Souza
A 365-page book is also available in print
Now, an online Konkani-English dictionary
THE GOAN NETWORK
PANAJI
In a major boost towards promoting Konkani Wikipedia, the 'Modern Konkani-English Dictionary' has been launched online for public use. This move will go a long way in preserving Konkani language and culture in the digital era.
The dictionary, co-authored by Isidore Dantas and the late Joel D’Souza, was on Thursday released under the 'Creative Commons' licence to make it freely available to users.
Speaking to The Goan about the initiative, Wikipedia volunteer, Harriet Vidyasagar, said this was a major step in keeping the language alive on the internet.
“Wikipedia will certainly be an important tool for future generations, and it is imperative that the basic building blocks are in place. At present, Konkani as a language is at vulnerable stage, and it will go extinct if technology is not used promote it,” said Vidyasagar.
This dictionary, she pointed out, will also serve as the main word source of building and writing articles on Konkani Wikipedia.
“Modern English-Konkani Dictionary will act as an extremely useful resource in understanding and applying Konkani in research and education domain. The possibilities that open up with this dictionary towards supporting the development of Konkani are immense. The corpus of words that are compiled here can be utilised to build a comprehensive Konkani word bank which can further facilitate other applications like Konkani Wiktionary, spell check and OCR facility for Konkani,” she said.
Dantas, who along with D’Souza worked on the book for over three years, released the 365-page book in print as well. The book release was as part of a Wikipedia workshop that was attended by students from Nirmala Institute, Althino where a specialised course is being developed aimed at students creating articles for the Konkani Wikipedia that currently lacks a strong base.
The dictionary also aims to bring together attempts that are occurring in the formal domains of social sciences, and the digital efforts being undertaken to preserve Konkani.
“If these efforts can be synergised, there will definitely be a bright future, with the opening up of vast possibilities and applications of the Konkani language,” said Dantas.
