ON ENGLISH_MAITHILI DICTIONARY BY GAJENDRA THAKUR-
PROFESSOR UDAYA NARAYANA SINGH
Only when Samuel Johnson's A Dictionary of the English Language (1755) was published, the English scholars and students could get an actually reliable lexicon of their language with a great degree of sophistication. Most early efforts in English lacked maturity. The 1604 dictionary called A Table Alphabeticall by Robert Cawdrey, or other works by many imitators who followed it were no match vis-a-vis the tradition of dictionary-making in the rest of Europe. But the early bilingual dictionaries that involved French, Italian or Latin words along with definitions of the foreign words in English were much better, and the 1592-glossary of Richard Mulcaster could be given as one instance. These were still not comparable with Arabic dictionaries were compiled between the 8th and 14th centuries, especially the general purpose dictionaries like the Lisan al-`Arab (13th c.).
English as we know her now has been a relatively recent phenomenon in the world history of languages, perhaps a little older than Maithili. This is because when the oldest available treatise in Maithili by Jyotirishwara was being written, that was the time of Chaucer in English. The oldest known western dictionaries were created in the erstwhile Akkadian empire with bilingual Sumerian-Akkadian wordlist (found in Ebla, Modern Syria) and dating roughly 2300 BC. But the oldest Greek lexicon by Apollonius the Sophist (fl. 1st century CE), which lists Homeric vocabulary and meanings set an example. The 2nd millennium BC Urra=hubullu glossary with such bilingual Sumerian wordlists is another example of old lexicographical accounts, comparable only with the Chinese tradition of the 3rd century B.C. The early Japanese attempt of 682 CE Niina glossary of Chinese characters, or the oldest existing Japanese dictionary, Tenrei Banshō Meigi (835 CE) were also important steps.
In India, preservation of the Vedic literature was the biggest motivation for grammatical and lexicographical works. In Panini as well as other grammatical traditions in Sanskrit, it was a common and very basic task to segment Vedic sentences into words, and words into root-suffix components. In the process, morphological, phonological as well as morpho-phonological theories were also developed. Nighantu (700BC) on which Yaska is believed to have written a commentary called Nirukta is the oldest known treatise, and this tradition continued to Pali tradition as well. They arranged lexical material from the point of view of Synonymy as well as Homonymy. The first and the foremost popular name of lexicon work in Classical Sanskrit is Amarasimha’s Amarakosa (6h century AD). The Catalogous Catalogorum lists at least 40 commentaries on Amarakosa alone, which shows how important and popular this synonyms dictionary was in Ancient India. There were many other léxica created more or less in the
style of Amarakosa, which included the following (cf. Malhar Kulkarni, in TDIL site):
1. Naamamaalikaa of Bhoja (11 C)
2. SiddhashabdaarNava of Sahajakirti- (17th C)
3. Shaaradiiyaakhyaanaamamaalaa of Harsakirti- (17th C)
4. Paryaayashabdaratna of Dhananjaya-Bhatta
5. Koshakalpataru
6. Naanaartharatnamaalaa of Irugapa Dandadhinatha (14th C)
7. Naanaarthamañjarii of Raghav a
8. DharaNiikosha of Dharanidas a (12th C)
9. Shivakosa of Sivadatta-Misra
10. Ekaarthanaamamaalaa-dvyaksharanamamaalaa of Saubhari.
11. Paramaanandiiyanaamamaalaa of Makrandadasa
The first modern-day dictionary of Sanskrit made using the western principles was the Sanskrit-English Dictionary compiled by Professor H.H. Wilson and published in 1813. Two Indian dictionaries came out soon after, namely, the Sabdakalpadruma of Pt Sir Raja Radhakanta Dev and the Vacasptya compiled by Pt Taranatha Tarkavacaspati.
To my mind, Practical lexicography, or the science and art of compiling, writing and editing lexicons meant for different purposes is as important as Theoretical lexicography. Lexicography as an expression occurs only in 1680 A.D., although the term Dictionary makes its appearance in English in 1526 A.D., as the Merriam-Webster’s tells us. We are told that a dictionary must be the following:
1 : A reference source in print or electronic form containing words usually alphabetically arranged along with information about their forms, pronunciations, functions, etymologies, meanings, and syntactical and idiomatic uses
2 : A reference book listing alphabetically terms or names important to a particular subject or activity along with discussion of their meanings and applications
3 : A reference book giving for words of one language equivalents in another
4 : A computerized list (as of items of data or words) used for reference (as for information retrieval or word processing)
The activities associated with the practice of this rare and time-intensive art involves at least the following:
Identification of the end-users and their requirements
Decision on a limited set of defining words based on common people’s vocabulary
Decision on how to organize definitions and explications
Identifying what the communicative and cognitive functions of the lexicon might be
Identification of the different components of the dictionary
Choice of appropriate structures for data storage and display (i.e. frames, categorization, classification, distribution, and cross-references)
Selecting head words and affixes for lemmatization
Highlighting the collocations and combinations
Adding IPA or Bloch & Tragger symbols marking pronunciation of words
Adding stylistic and dialectal variations
Choice of equivalents in the target languages in case of multilingual dictionaries
User access keys and facilities in both print and e-dictionaries
The Gangetic plain in Bihar and the Terai region at the foothills of the Himalayas in Nepal that together define the cultural space of Maithili and Mithila was talked about by George Abraham Grierson (1908) long ago, although he was mainly concerned with what is traditionally known as Mithila within India. There had been many changes and redrawing of borders in this region. Grierson had considered the speech area of Maithili to be the entire districts of Darbhanga and Bhagalpur of Bihar in the early 20th century. In addition, he had enlisted Maithili as a language spoken by the majority of people living in the districts of Muzaffarpur, Mongyr, Purnea and Santhal Parganas. But as we know, some of these have now been a part of Jharkhand state.
It should also be mentioned that in between, during the recognization of the state, only 5 out of 17 districts (viz. Bhagalpur, Purnea, Saharsa, Darbhanga and Muzaffarpur) were generally taken as Mithila-speaking districts of Bihar. Paul Brass(1974) in his detailed study of the Maithili movement in his "Language religion and politics in North India" had taken this as broadly defining the geographical space of Mithila. After Bihar was split up into 31 districts in early 1980s, in a project report (entitled "The Maithili language movement in North Bihar: a sociolinguistic investigation") prepared by me jointly with N. Rajaram and Pradip Kumar Bose, we had taken the position that 10 out of 31 districts should be considered as Maithili speech area: Bhagalpur, Katihar, Purnea, Saharsa, Madhubani, Darbhanga, Samastipur, Sitamarhi, Muzaffarpur and Vaishali. In conclusion, the geographical boundaries have changed both because of natural changes (as the river Koshi has changed its course seven times in the last 200 years) as well as because of reorganization of districts.
It is obviously a great challenge for anyone who wishes to attempt a gigantic dictionary of Maithili as Gajendra Thakur has attempted. The situation is more complex because Maithili lexis is likely to be affected partly or greatly by the 12 other languages spoken in the same cultural area. There are about 12 other languages worth mentioning. The major languages spoken around Maithili are Bhojpuri and Magahi with Hindi being a super-imposed language spoken by all the three speech communities. But Bihar being a multi-lingual state, one can also find Nepali and Bengali speakers in good number. In addition, since Maithili speakers are found in good numbers in the Jharkhand region too, one has to take it that Oraon, Mundari, Ho, Bihar, Dhangar, Santali and a number of the smaller Austric language speakers too co-exist with them. Although a lot of Muslims in Mithila region return their mother tongue as Maithili, a number of them also claim to be speakers of Urdu. Of these, only four have constitutional recognition: Hindi, Urdu, Bengali and Nepali. To my mind, Maithili has had influences at the syntactic levels from many, including from the Austric languages but at the lexical level, the additions and adaptations have been limited to limited sources such as Urdu, Hindi, Bhojpuri and Magahi. The dictionary captures native lexis as much as the nativized ones. This is also because I think not more than 25% to 30% speakers are monolingual speakers of Maithili, as most are quite proficient in other tongues. Those Maithili speakers living near western Bihar also speak in Bhojpuri and those in the Patna-Ranchi-Gaya-Monghyr region know Magahi, too, in addition to Hindi. But only a tiny percentage, say - less than 3% to 5% of Maithils, can also speak effectively in English. But borrowing from English into Maithili at the word level is as rampant as in case of other New Indian Languages (NIA).
Many might raise this doubt as to what would be the number of people who would be benefitted by an attempt such as Gajendra-ji’s? Although the Official figures of speakers of Maithili have not remained stable. But this obviously needs some elaboration. The Census figures are not realistic as 2001 figures are: 1,21,79,122. The skepticism is confirmed, when we see that there have been tremendous fluctuations in the decennial estimates of Maithili speakers as can be shown from a comparison of decennial increase or decrease of all Census figures since 1891 base:
1901 - 11: + 3.12%
1911 - 21: - 0.77%
1921 - 31: + 7.68%
1931 - 41: + 9.13%
1941 - 51: Not conducted
1951 - 61: + 22.35%
1961 - 71: + 20.89%
1971 - 81: + 24.19%
In actuality, the number of Maithili speakers have reasonably steadily increased. Some indications could be given only from my guess-work, which is estimated to be 40 million. In 1891, Grierson (1908) had estimated the number of speakers of Maithili as 9,289,376. As against this, the Census 1961 figures showed 4,982,615. Obviously, the Census 1961 figures were not realistic. Although Grierson’s (1909) population estimates based on his survey done in 1891 were not agreed upon by all, at the turn of the present century Maithili was spoken in the following regions:
i. all Darbhanga and Bhagalpur,
ii. 6/7th of Muzaffarpur
iii. 1/2 of Monghyr
iv. 2/3rd of Purnea, and
v. 4/5 of the so-called "Hindi" speakers (enumerated in the Census) under the Santhal Parganas.
During 1816, a part of the northern speech area was permanently annexed by the Kingdom of Nepal. Therefore, to the total number of speakers, about 14% population of Nepal will have to be added. Paul Brass (1974: 64-6) uses Gait's computation (cf. Census 1901) based on various documents available through 1885, and arrives at the figure of 16,565,477. The calculation here is based on Grierson's estimates plus the growth of overall population for Bihar over these 8 decades. On the basis of 1981 figures, and considering the figures of scattered Maithilis outside the Mithila area, and considering the population in the 10 districts (out of 31), I and my colleagues had, in mid-1980s, arrived at the figure of 22,972,807 (cf. Singh, Rajaram & Bose 1985). This figure, considering the decennial increase of population, has gone up to 40 million, to my mind, and that many people stand to gain by a gigantic effort such as this dictionary. It is generally presumed that Maithili is spoken only by the Brahmins in the Mithila region. This seems to be a disinformation spread earlier to somehow fit it as a dialect of Hindi, mainly in order to increase the official figure of speakers of Hindi. But a look at the caste composition in North Bihar and the actual census returns for Maithili would tell the true story. The relatively high returns for Maithili in some census reports could be explained only by the fact that although 46.84% people living in the Mithila-speaking districts are Muslims, as against 31.06% Hindus in Mithila, there could not have been an overwhelming support for Maithili unless a good number of them returned Maithili as their mother tongue.
A survey of language use in Mithila could show that although the language had been shrinking in use in the formal domains. But it is also true that literary productivity and achievements are better noticed on all-India scale now more than they were 20 years ago. Madhubani painting or Mithila Art have become famous all over India, and has reached the world market, too. Only if the new generation of Maithili speakers decides to shift their cultural-linguistic identity, there could be a threat. In my perception, denial of constitutional rights has been a boon in disguise for Maithili, because that has added vigor to its literary-cultural activity. It has already overtaken several constitutionally recognized languages such as Manipuri, Konkani, Nepali and even Sindhi. And now that it is in the 8th Schedule, it should get the official and other kind of patronage it deserves. It should also get the support of its users who would now look for the modern tools such as on-line e-zines, e-dictionaries, hand-held mobile glossaries, and the automated Q-A systems etc. To that extent, this dictionary of Maithili which will be available in both web and printed version will be a significant contribution by the compiler. Gajendra Thakur and the publishers deserve all commendation from the Maithili speech community in particular, and from the scholars in translation in general. It is true that Maithili lexicography bloomed very late, much after M.M. Dinabandhu Jha’s efforts and only now we have some significant works like KalyaaNii-kosha by Pt. Govind Jha, or the Brihat Maithilii Shabdakosha by Jayakant Mishra, Mithila Shabda-Prakasha by Pt. Matinath Mishra ‘Matanga’, or Basic Colloquial Maithili: A Maithili-Nepali-English Vocabulary by Alice Davis. The Sankshipta Maithili Shabdakosha and the Bilingual Maithili Dictionary, planned by the Maithili Academy, Patna are yet to see the light. The plan of the National Translation Mission (see www.ntm.org.in) to come out with a Longman-CIIL Basic English-English-Maithili based on corpora will also be an interesting product. But all said and done, the significance of this work will be understood more and more as time will pass by.
28.2.2009.
Mysore
Prof. Udaya Narayana Singh
Director