Word’s her world

“Though my job as a state government employee introduced me to the intricacies of language,translation and grammar,I still did not have the freedom to choose the words I wanted to use while translating official documents. I had come across small dictionaries on different topics and though they inspired me to compile one of my own,I always wanted it to be more classified and more accurate,” says Samant who started working on the project in 1995.

A result of the 12 years of relentless work was the dictionary- Sabdananda,a three- language in English- Marathi and Hindi. “The reasons behind selecting these three language were quite obvious. While English is the world language,Hindi is the lingua- Franca or what we call the common language for Indians and Marathi is my mother tongue,” says Samant who compiled the dictionary keeping in mind the translators,teachers,professors and researchers. “While the students have their own set of reference books and dictionaries,researchers and connoisseurs use the high- ended technical terms. The reader for this dictionary is a well-educated common man who wants to be well informed and needs to refer to dictionary a number of times for his own purpose. While Webster remained by primary reference book,most of the books or people I approached for terminology were mediators between common man and experts,” adds she explaining how nurses’ terminology became the basis of medical section in the dictionary,Ranade Institute became the source of terminology for journalism related words and so on.

With 27,000 English words along with their Hindi and Marathi equivalents numbering to 30,000 each under 70-subject heads,the dictionary is one of its kinds when it comes to a rational and scientific classification of words. “The dictionary is divided in two parts. The first part is the alphabetically arranged English dictionary with equivalent words in Hindi and Marathi written against each English word. What makes the search easy is that the words are assorted under various subject heads. But I did not want it to be a one-way source of reference. For those who want to look for an equivalent English word for Marathi or Hindi words,the second section provides a detailed index in Hindi and Marathi alphabetical order. The page number in front of the word is what they need to refer to in order to find English word for the same,” smiles she.

With appreciation from experts,Samant was awarded Sandarbha Sahitya Puraskar by Maharashtra Sahitya Parishad,Utkrushta Vangmay Nirmitee Puraskar of the government of Maharashtra and the Homi Jehangir Bhabha Puraskar.