India’s First & Largest Multilingual Online Dictionary Launched

New Delhi: A dictionary is a collection of words in one or more specific languages, often alphabetically, with usage of information, definitions, etymologies, phonetics, pronunciations, translation, and other.

Now a Multilingual knowledge portal www.bharatavani.in has been launched with 22 languages.

Union HRD minister, Smriti Irani has launched portal www.bharatavani.in on Wednesday, which aims to bring the entire knowledge base of India from textbooks, encyclopedias, dictionaries, glossaries, language learning tools etc. in multimedia format on a single platform.

Currently, more than 130 dictionaries, glossaries and terminology are available on the web portal. These dictionaries are available in text and PDF formats. The Home Page (bharatavani.in) will be in Hindi – English interface. Separate sub domains like .bharatavni.in are available for all the other languages. For example, Kannada content is primarily available on kannada.bharatavani.in.

The aim of the website is to publish all the available content in different languages. All the content in print and other formats will be digitized and put onto the portal in the form of searchable text.

According to the website, Bharatavani collects knowledge content in all the enlisted languages from all the Government and Non-Governmental Institutions, Educational Institutions, Board of Education, Directorate of Textbooks, Universities, Academies, Publication Houses, etc.

MHRD also launched the Bharatavani Multi-lingual App. This App, also called Bharatavani, will enable users to search for one language text in another language and get the meanings in different languages. The app currently has 35 multilingual dictionaries and aims to extend it to 250 dictionaries with a year’s time.

Bharatavani is run by a National Advisory Committee comprising of eminent linguists, and knowledge experts, a Technology Advisory Committee for guidance on the technological requirements on the portal and language tools development, and a Language Editorial Committee to aggregate content for the website. The Central Institute of Indian Languages (CIIL), Mysuru is implementing this project for the MHRD.