Karbi Lamtasam, Online Karbi-Assamese-English Dictionary

The Karbi- Assamese-English Dictionary namely Karbi Lamtasam was published in the year 2020 comprising of around 1100 pages with more than 22000 entries and subentries. As a trilingual dictionary, it has turned out to be a valuable repository of vocabulary in the Karbi language along with corresponding meanings in Assamese and English.

However, keeping in mind the need for wider access of such valuable publications in the present scenario of technological advancement, ABILAC decided to prepare and launch the online version of this dictionary. The process of producing the online version of this dictionary was not so smooth as the already published dictionary was typed using Adobe Pagemaker software and also due to the use of non-unicode fonts for writing the meanings in Assamese language.. This has necessitated a lot of back-end programming for conversion of the database, fonts and other important elements to formats suitable for online browsing. This webpage offers the search function for anyone to type any words in Karbi, Assamese or English languages which will provide search results associated with the searched item from the database.

This programme is the result of a concerted effort from different individuals and organizations. Hence it is proper to acknowledge the support and assistance of the following individuals and organisations in bringing out this online version of the Karbi-Assamese-English trilingual dictionary.

Prof (Dr.) Dilip Kumar Kalita as the Director of ABILAC has played an anchoring role in the development of this programme. As the director of ABILAC he supported this concept of production of online dictionaries as one step forward towards ABILAC’s continuous effort in the development and strengthening of the indigenous languages and cultures of Assam. To this effect he signed an MoU with the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts (IGNCA), paving the way for collaborative efforts between ABILAC and IGNCA. This online dictionary is a direct result of this collaboration as IGNCA has very kindly supported this programme financially. Suresh Goduka, Regional Director, IGNCA played an important role in the signing of the MoU and in particularly supporting this effort by way of providing financial assistance. In this connection we would like to acknowledge the support of Sachhidananda Joshi, the Member Secretary of IGNCA in making this collaboration possible.

Khoyasing Hanse, the editor of the Karbi Lamtasam, the printed dictionary has worked with the team in providing required assistance for the online version and also in checking entries wherever it was required.

Dr. Kellen Parker Van Dam, who is Post-doctoral fellow at the Department of Comparative Language Science, University of Zürich has played a major role in creating and editing the digital database and designing by way of programming and converting the original data which existed in Adobe Pagemaker.

Dr. Palash Kumar Nath, Assistant Professor, Department of Language and Linguistics has conceptualized and coordinated this programme at different levels. He has also played crucial role in the data editing and has worked extensively with Dr Kellen Parker Van Dam in the creation of the database and designing of the programme.