Dictionary : English-Garhwali-Hindi

This work has a distinctive purpose. Author had started collecting Garhwali words with their English equivalents and vice-versa, just after the publication of my book 'Kosh Vidha' (Art of Dictionary Making) in 2004. This process, however, got a fillip after the bringing out of the voluminous 'Garhwali Hindi-English Dictionary', prepared under my chief editorship and published by the Government of Uttarakhand in 2014. After that received numerous calls from people of Garhwali origin, who were educated in English medium institutions and now living in towns and cities of India and abroad, urging me to make dictionary that would provide Garhwali equivalents for English words. Ironically, the majority among these comprised the youth from the Garhwal region itself, sadly including my progeny. They expressed a keen desire to learn Garhwali and further saying that they were fully conversant with the English language but hesitant to speak in their mother tongue Garhwali.

Besides, it is noticed that after the emergence of Uttarakhand in 2000, there is a great surge in the educated Garhwali youth to learn the language of their forefathers which is withering day by day. Even the basic kinship and pronominal terms of Garhwali are forgotten. Further, it is deeply distressing that UNESCO's 'Atlas of World's Languages in Danger designates Garhwali as a language in the 'unsafe' category. Analysts have assigned numerous reasons for this alarming state, one very important cause of which is the non-availability of suitable bi-lingual dictionaries. This work has a distinctive purpose. Author had started collecting Garhwali words with their English equivalents and vice-versa, just after the publication of my book 'Kosh Vidha' (Art of Dictionary Making) in 2004. This process, however, got a fillip after the bringing out of the voluminous 'Garhwali Hindi-English Dictionary', prepared under my chief editorship and published by the Government of Uttarakhand in 2014. After that received numerous calls from people of Garhwali origin, who were educated in English medium institutions and now living in towns and cities of India and abroad, urging me to make dictionary that would provide Garhwali equivalents for English words. Ironically, the majority among these comprised the youth from the Garhwal region itself, sadly including my progeny. They expressed a keen desire to learn Garhwali and further saying that they were fully conversant with the English language but hesitant to speak in their mother tongue Garhwali.

Besides, it is noticed that after the emergence of Uttarakhand in 2000, there is a great surge in the educated Garhwali youth to learn the language of their forefathers which is withering day by day. Even the basic kinship and pronominal terms of Garhwali are forgotten. Further, it is deeply distressing that UNESCO's 'Atlas of World's Languages in Danger designates Garhwali as a language in the 'unsafe' category. Analysts have assigned numerous reasons for this alarming state, one very important cause of which is the non-availability of suitable bi-lingual dictionary. The layout of this dictionary is very simple. Firstly, the main entry or catch word of English is indicated in bold; then is denoted its position as a part of speech or grammatical form, and thereafter are provided as many Garhwali words in italics and Hindi equivalents. In certain cases could not find a proper Garhwali word conveying the same meaning as in English. For instance 'polygamy' and 'polyandry' a matrimonial custom, so prevalent in many border areas of Garhwal till a few years back, had no equivalent in Garhwali. In such cases I had to coin new phrases in the least possible letters. I have not ventured in giving explanation or elaboration of words either, as I did not want to land myself in controversy as happened with Dr. Samuel Johnson, the progenitor of English Dictionary, when he explained the word 'oats' in his Dictionary of the English Language as "a grain used for horses in England but for people in Scotland" which created a furore in the British parliament. Exigencies of space and paucity of resources did not warrant inclusion of other features provided in some larger or comprehensive dictionaries.

In this dictionary the Garhwali words are recorded in their spoken form as this language is not yet standardised. have tried my best to maintain the peculiarities and tendencies of the Garhwali language in its original form. It is important to bear in mind that due to varying physiographical conditions, Garhwali has many dialects, sub-dialects and sub-sub-dialects reaching about twenty five. In many cases there are different dialectal variations in stress, tone, modulation, pronunciation and terminology for the identical object, idea or activity.

Furthermore, owing to diversities in climatic conditions, the vowels are pronounced differently even at small distances. Short and long vowels i.e. 'a-aa' (3i-3n), matrix prime&i-11 ( overline y -y), 'u- uu^ prime (v-d) and some consonants like 'w'() 'b'(a) and ^ prime ka^ prime ( Phi)-^ prime ga^ prime (7) as in a rainy season), are interchangeable. Notably, there is a neutral vowel between 'a' (a) and 'aa' (3), phonetically transcribed as ^ prime S^ prime in Garhwali, the use of which makes a lot of semantic difference. There is predominance of 3 for 3, retroflex 'N' () in place of dental 'n' () and mathfrak v (a) for (a). The sound 'rh' () is generally pronounced as (R) as (and 'ST as (^ prime vec psi ^ prime prime ) Among the fricatives, alphabet's' () is preferred to 'sh' (7) and 'Sh' (). The letter is pronounced as (^ prime 8^ prime )ii some areas.

Other tendency of Garhwali is predominance of short vowels. Way back around 200 BCE, sage Bharat Muni in his Natya Shastra had noted that the language of Himwant (Garhwal region) is gef i.e. tending towards 'u' or 'uu' (, ). In this region, the final vowel in a large number of words, particularly nouns and verbs, tends towards 'u' (), 'uu' (a) or ^ prime (a ). which are inter-changeable. For standardisation I have spelled the last vowel of all infinitive verbs in this dictionary as ending in 'uu' (a) eg. * (to do), 7 (to go), 7(to eat) etc. Again in the use of voiceless unaspirated consonants, in place of voiceless aspirated consonants, is also prevalent, eg duud (g) in place of duudh (g) i.e. milk, and haat (gra) in place of haath (m) i.e. hand. In syntax and a major part of grammar, Garhwali is generally similar to Hindi.

Not to exaggerate, it sometimes appears that the Garhwal has something special in its fertile soil. The rich vocabulary of Garhwali reveals that its sons like the great Kalidas, are very sensitive, emotional and nature-loving They also exhibit a Shakespearian insight for penetrating into the human mind to depict all possible situations, predicaments, mannerisms and behavioural traits or gestures in different situations. For example the single English word 'coquetry' has seven variants in Garhwali: 02 92 कछयाट छकनाट, नखरयाट, फैल, चोचला Author wanted to acquaint the English educated present generation with some distinctive vocables of Garhwali, such as कळकळी, घुतघुती, भाडुळी, छपछपी, खुद, सुवा and a number of other unique words, but could not find an apt or matching single word as 'key entry' or 'main entry' in English.