Hi Buljit Congratulation.Job well done. KJ Deka,Texas
On 6/14/08, Buljit Buragohain <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > 1st English-Assamese online dictionary > By A Staff Reporter > GUWAHATI, June 13 – It is good news for the Internet-savvy Assamese fond of > his or her language, for there has emerged a worthy cause. Xobdo, a > non-profit organisation of volunteers spread across the globe, is inviting > others to help develop what it calls the "World's first and only > English-Assamese online dictionary". Even though the dictionary project ( > www.xobdo.net) is already on, the team behind it is dreaming big. There is > an aim to make it an online access tool to as many languages of Northeast as > possible in the near future. > > The vision of Xobdo has been stated as, "…to demolish language barrier and > thereby fuel mutual understanding and cooperation among the people of the > entire North-East India and to bring the languages of the region to the > fore-front of the IT age." > > Xobdo is the brainchild of Bikram M Baruah, a petroleum engineer now based > in Abu Dhabi. With more volunteers coming together following its launch in > 2006, 10,000 words were gathered by December 2007. The target for 2008 is to > collate 20,000 words. > > According to Buljit Buragohain of Xobdo, the online dictionary seeks to > document the languages as they are used today in their original forms. There > is no attempt to enforce or express Xobdo's own viewpoint about any spelling > or semantics being right or wrong. > > Significantly, it has also been said that Xobdo does not seek to follow any > specific dictionary or any glossary or word-list published by any authority > or entity; neither does it accept opinions of experts. Rather, it considers > the present-day meaning to be the standard as it is evidenced in > 'contemporary use'. > > In case of doubts, volunteers opt for a discussion in which the words and > their meanings are agreed on. Some of Xobdo's volunteers, significantly, > come with sound background in linguistics studies. > > For the information of volunteers, any word to be added in Xobdo must have > 'contemporary use'. In case of a new word coined recently, Xobdo will not > add it unless it appears in at least one publication of repute. > > Buragohain revealed that anybody could become a member and contribute words > to the online dictionary. One can also challenge the spellings or meanings > featured in the dictionary. Through discussions with other members of Xobdo > a consensus decision has to be taken within a reasonable time frame and the > entry has to be updated accordingly. > > Next on Xobdo's agenda is to include words from a variety of NE languages, > with the belief that unless that is done, many of the words and their usage > would disappear, causing irreparable harm to a culture defined by rich > linguistic diversity. Xobdo is particularly keen that volunteers > well-acquainted with Boro, Rabha, Karbi and other languages joined its > efforts to build in a large corpus of words and their meanings. > > (The Assam Tribune,14.06.2008) > > http://www.assamtribune.com/scripts/details.asp?id=jun1408/at08 > > > Check out the all-new face of Yahoo! India. Go to > http://in.yahoo.com/ > _______________________________________________ > assam mailing list > [email protected] > http://assamnet.org/mailman/listinfo/assam_assamnet.org > _______________________________________________ assam mailing list [email protected] http://assamnet.org/mailman/listinfo/assam_assamnet.org
