A Dictionary that Provides Native Kannada Synonyms for Sanskrit Words

A Sanskrit-Kannada dictionary 'Samskṛta Padagaḷige Kannaḍaddē Padagaḷu', co-authored by Dr D N Shankara Bhat, Y Bharat Kumar and myself was released on the 5th of August. There are several Sanskrit-Kannada dictionaries that are already available. But this dictionary is different from all of those in several ways.

The Kannada synonyms provided in the dictionary are native Kannada words. In other Sanskrit-Kannada dictionaries, one can see mostly Sanskrit words as Kannada equivalents. For example, in one such dictionary, 'buddhi' and 'prajne' are provided as Kannada equivalents of the Sanskrit word 'Dhi'. But interestingly, both these 'Kannada synonyms' are in fact Sanskrit words. Similarly, in providing 'yuvati' for 'taruni' and 'svikara' for 'parigrahana', one can see that the Kannada synonyms provided are actually Sanskrit words.

To an average reader it would be impossible to know which of the synonyms are actually native Kannada words and which ones among them are of Sanskrit origin. This new dictionary will be of great help to such a reader who would want to know native Kannada words.

It is well known that Kannada authors use plenty of loan words, especially those of Sanskrit origin, that are not easily comprehensible to an average Kannada reader. This is particularly true for scientific literature in Kannada. In science and technology, there is always the need to coin new words. Whenever there is such a need to coin a new word to describe a new invention or a new scientific concept, Kannada authors have mostly resorted to Sanskrit. Such a practice has made the scientific vocabulary hard to comprehend.

Such words are not only difficult to understand but also coining such new words to express newer and more advanced concepts becomes increasingly difficult. As a result it affects the overall educational progress of the language community. In other words, using familiar native Kannada words to build vocabulary in any subject will only help increase comprehensibility in general, and gradually improve the levels of education overall.

In fact, there are two schools of thought. One, as mentioned above, believes in resorting to Sanskrit to build new words. The other believes in borrowing vocabulary from English. But to a common Kannada reader or student, both English and Sanskrit are unfamiliar and hence any vocabulary built based on either of these languages will only make the concepts difficult to comprehend. Most of the readers would be forced to rote learn, than understand. Therefore it makes a lot of sense to construct new words in Kannada, which is easily comprehensible.

The book has about twenty five thousand Kannada words, provided with examples of usage in sentences and other word forms. To people interested in using native Kannada words and to those interested in building and coining new words in Kannada, the dictionary will give a good idea on an approach to coin and use native Kannada words.

This English–Kannada Dictionary Breaks New Ground

Renowned linguist Dr. D. N. Shankara Bhat’s new English-Kannada dictionary titled English-Kannada Padanerake (Kannada: ಇಂಗ್ಲಿಶ್-ಕನ್ನಡ ಪದನೆರಕೆ) was released last Sunday. It has been co-authored by Y Bharath Kumar and Vivek Shankar, both engineers by profession with interest in the field of linguistics.

While there are several English-Kannada dictionaries already available in the market, this work is quite different from the rest in three key aspects –

• The Kannada synonyms of English words provided in the dictionary are all mostly native Kannada words, with a very minimal number having their roots in other languages
• Along with native Kannada words in popular use, it also includes newly coined words, especially those corresponding to the fields of commerce, science, technology, and other modern fields of study 
• It has a sizable number of words coined by commoners and enthusiasts through the Facebook group Pada Pada Kannada Padane

In all, there are about 18,000 English words listed in the dictionary, to which, about 45,000 Kannada equivalents have been provided. It also contains several detailed examples illustrating the use of words in their different shades of meaning.

A good portion of words contained in most Kannada dictionaries of today are of Sanskrit origin that are not easily comprehensible to a common Kannada speaker. This is particularly true of words used in the fields of science and technology. Such words, owing to their unfamiliarity, appear quite complex and largely fail to convey the intended meaning.

As of today, not much work has been done in building science vocabulary in Kannada. We are mostly reliant on English, which makes learning difficult for commoners. And whatever new Kannada words that have been coined, especially the terminologies used in scientific literature, are mostly constructed from Sanskrit root words. Most of these words, as said above, appear complex and not easily understandable. 

This dictionary tries to fill the gap by providing words that are easy to comprehend and use. Kannada equivalents to scientific terms provided in the new dictionary are very close to native words used in common speech. The use of native words in coining new terms also has the inherent advantage of making use of native Kannada grammatical rules. Hence, not only is it easy to comprehend a new word and the associated concept, subject matter experts and common Kannada speakers alike can coin new words all by themselves.

By coining words that are closer to people’s language, and using them in building content in science and technology, several issues concerned with learning can be effectively resolved over a period of time, serving as an enabler to students studying science in the Kannada medium. 

And these concerns are not just limited to Kannada, but pervasive across many other Indian languages. Such language communities too should consider coining words in their own languages to build their word stock, chiefly scientific lexicon, by the use of well-known and commonly used words.

Needless to say, the dictionary is just the first step in the long journey of building corpus in Kannada. It is unprecedented in that excepting a few individual attempts at coining words in native Kannada no other initiative has yet taken up the task in such an organized manner and scale.

The dictionary, released last Sunday, will be available in the market shortly. One may follow Dr. Bhat’s website for the latest updates.