Telugu-Urdu dictionary soon

HYDERABAD: To bridge the gap between Urdu and Telugu, the Urdu Academy Andhra Pradesh has come up with a unique project of publishing a Telugu-Urdu dictionary.
The dictionary is expected to be ready in a couple of months.
The dictionary will help the Telugu speaking people in the state to understand Urdu in a proper way.
The 1,200-page dictionary will contain 40,000 head words along with grammar, etymology, transliteration, meaning in source language, translation and explanation.
"The Telugu-Urdu dictionary will be a major step in bridging the gap between the two languages," academy chairman Syed Shah Noorul Haq Quadri told The Times Of India.
According to Quadri, the compilation of the dictionary involved a comprehensive research in selecting 40,000 important words in Telugu and then ensuring that they are perfectly translated along with other essentialities like grammar, etymology and transliteration.
However, grammar and etymology and transliteration are not likely to be included in the first edition.
Though the project has been on the cards since 1994, it was only in 1998 that the academy actually began the project work. The compilation of words and translation has already been completed and presently the dictionary is being composed.
The compilation work was done by a team of experts led by Patel Anantaih.
The total cost of the project is estimated to be about Rs 3 lakh.
Of this, the National Council for Promotion of Urdu Language (NCPUL) has released Rs 75,000, while the academy has spent Rs 1.64 lakh for the project.
On an average, the academy has spent Rs 3 per word for compilation along with translation and Rs 2 per word for corrections or proof reading.
A total of 1,000 copies will be published in the first edition which is expected to be completed within a month or two.