First dictionary of Dalit vocabulary soon

Though Dalit languages have been an integral part of Marathi culture, and are spoken by a large number of people of the state, they have fallen off the mainstream radar since the last few decades. So much that iconic Marathi playwright, late Vijay Tendulkar, before writing the preface to noted Dalit poet Namdeo Dhasal’s poetry collection, Golpitha, visited the red light areas mentioned in the book as he was unfamiliar with many words in it.

Similarly, when late tribal poet Bhujang Meshram published his collection of poems, Ulgulan, many did not understand the meaning of even the title, which means ‘anxiety’. This is because an unfamiliar vocabulary exists in Dalit and rural Marathi literature which has confounded readers and experts of standard Marathi language.

To address this issue, and to bring Dalit literature closer to Marathi readers, state-run Rajya Marathi Vikas Sanstha (RMVS) is set to release the first volume of a dictionary of Marathi words from Dalit and rural literature. Covering unfamiliar words in 8,000 rural and Dalit books, the dictionary has taken eight years to put together.

“The first volume of Dalit Gramin Sahitya Shabdkosh has words from alphabets ‘Aa’ to ‘Gha’ and is ready for release,” the project’s chairman, noted author Gangadhar Pantawane, told DNA. He said that the press copy of the volume with more than 200 pages will be released in May.

This ambitious project began in 2003 and involved 26 experts from different regions of Maharashtra. “Dalit and rural literature grabbed attention after 1960, although such literature exists since the 1940s. In this project, some 8,000 literary works — including all literature forms like novels, autobiographies, plays and poetry until the year 2005 have been selected,” one of the experts, Krishna Kirwale, said. Kirwale is the director of Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar Centre for Research and Development at Shivaji University in Kolhapur.

For the last eight years, the experts participating in the project have been gathering at the RMVS office in Mumbai twice a month.

The words which are not familiar in standard Marathi language have been segregated and elucidated with complete sentences. Some words were so difficult that the authors had to be contacted for the precise meanings, Kirwale said.

The dictionary contains words and their meanings, the sentence from the book in which the word has been used, the name of the book, the page number, and the author’s name. In case of repetition of a word in many books, references of only three books have been provided.

“The different spoken forms of Marathi are gradually losing their importance. But these spoken languages are closer to the people. Those who follow the standard Marathi language are not more than 20% of the state’s population and are restricted to a few urban centres,” Kirwale said.

He stressed that the dictionary will serve as a bridge between readers of standard Marathi text and the languages of Dalits and rural folk.

Given that the first part of the project, which is also important in the field of socio-linguistics, took almost eight years to compile, the second volume will take some time before it is published, Kirwale said.