Karnataka: After Beary academy, now a dictionary for this ancient community

Mangaluru: Muslim by faith, the Beary community, which resides mainly in the coastal districts of the state, got its due when the Karnataka Beary Sahithya Academy was formed a while ago. And now years later it has got its own dictionary of about 20,000 words with meanings listed both in Kannada and English.

The community, which is involved in trade, is believed to have got its name from the Tulu word, Bera, meaning business. While there are not many literary works in the Beary language, the numbers have increased after the formation of the Beary Sahithya Academy and it's hoped the Beary dictionary will encourage more of them, helping writers and scholars perfect the over 1200 year- old- language.

The culmination of long study by Beary language expert, Prof BM Ichlangod, who has been on the job for about seven years, the dictionary is seen as a welcome addition to the community's literary wealth.

"When I was a member of the academy during its first term I talked about preparing a dictionary as it would be of great help academically. About three years ago the academy gave me the task of preparing it and after some 32 months of labour, we have completed it with about 20,000 words," Prof Ichlangod told the Deccan Chronicle.

Acknowledging that there were still many more words to be added, he said it was a continuous process and the dictionary would be updated as and when neccessary.