Page 191 - DLIS006_INFORMATION SOURCES AND SERVICES

Information Sources and Services

Notes 1888 (revised 1963) [D319], Pope 1906 [D293], Mootoo-Tamby Pillai 1907 [D285],
Sankaranarayana Chettiar 1908 (revised in 1909 and 1917 [D305]), Percival 1861 (rev. ed.,
1935) [D292], and Chidambaranatha Chettiar 1965 [D273] (commonly referred to as the
Madras University Dictionary).

Of these, only Percival and Chidambaranatha Chettiar are still in print but neither is
conceived of in a way that takes into account the kind of information non-Tamils need to
have access to, i.e., they (and their predecessors) do not give even the minimal information
needed by a non-Tamil to determine which of a number of entries is the appropriate one
for a specific context. A non-Tamil needs to know of a verb whether it is transitive or
intransitive, what class (conjugation) it belongs to, something about appropriate contextual
usage, and perhaps some synonyms. It would also be useful, in the case of verbs, to have
some information about case-relations—whether the verb takes an accusative object, a
postposition, or no object at all. None of the currently extant English-Tamil dictionaries
gives this information—to check a verb’s class and transitivity, one must then consult a
Tamil-English dictionary such as Fabricius (1972 ed.). Another problem that non-Tamils
have with Tamil in general arises from diglossia: The existence of two versions or ‘styles’
of the language, one used for formal, written contexts and the other for informal spoken
contexts. Tamils tend to think of the differences between LT and ST as trivial and predictable;
non-Tamils see the differences as major, and not just confined to the phonological component
of the language, but pervasive throughout the morphology, lexicon, and the syntax.
In Dhamotharan’s 1978 bibliography of Tamil dictionaries there are actually some 55
English-Tamil dictionaries or glossaries listed. All of these suffer from various faults, such
as being intended for Tamil speakers only, for students (or children or tea planters) only,
are extremely brief, or are simply out of print. Many of them list rare English words but
do not give simpler or more colloquial items such as ‘come’ or ‘go’, or verb-particle
combinations such as ‘come off’, ‘burn down’, etc. None of them gives information on
Tamil spoken usage and pronunciation. The most modern and scholarly attempt, the
three-volume Madras University English-Tamil Dictionary edited by Chidambaranatha
Chettiar (1965), while containing much more information than the others, still does not
list verb classes, transitivity status, or any spoken forms.
Although it has not been possible for this writer to examine all of the 55 dictionaries listed
by Dhamotharan, of the currently available English-Tamil dictionaries, all suffer from the
faults mentioned, and none of any of the serious works give spoken forms—only the
guides for tea and rubber planters even attempt spoken forms, but in an unreliable English-
spelling-based transcription that obscures the true phonetic forms of the Tamil words.

9.3.3 Dictionaries Useful for Translations

Dictionaries are used as an aid in learning a foreign language. They are also used in translating
text of foreign language book, etc. in local language and vice-versa.
When a dictionary is compiled to give meaning of a word of one language into more than one
language, such as a dictionary, as is evident, is known as multilingual. In bilingual dictionaries,
word of one language is explained in the other language; sometimes such explanation may
exceed even a sentence. Multilingual dictionaries restrict themselves to only providing with
equivalent term in other languages. Such dictionaries also are made use of to provide descriptors
for subject headings. They are also considered part of comparative linguistics.” Thus multilingual
dictionaries may be grouped as:

Bilingual; and
Multilingual.

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