MYSORE: An English-Kannada dictionary being brought out by University of Mysore in four volumes (6,500 pages in all) will be released by Deputy Chief Minister B.S. Yediyurappa on Thursday.

Speaking to presspersons here on Tuesday, director of the university's Prasaranga Lakshminarayana Arora said this dictionary was the "most comprehensive bilingual dictionary" brought out in any language in the country.

The dictionary provided meaning to 1.06 lakh general words, 12,000 scientific and technical terminologies, and contained more than 1,600 photographs.

Prof. Arora said, "The Concise Oxford Dictionary has been the base in the making of the dictionary. Assistance has been sought from Random House, Webster and other popular general and scientific dictionaries to make this bi-lingual dictionary more comprehensive."

The dictionary, he said, contained the meaning for the latest words, new terminologies necessitated by the advent of information technology and development in the field of medicine.

The dictionary also contained the American version, and a large number of traditional words, sayings and their usages.

Besides, Prof. Arora said the compact disc version of the dictionary had audio component, which had been used to make the reader understand the pronunciations of words and sentences.

This version had been brought out as there was a great demand for the digitised version, he added.

List of States

The last section of the dictionary was devoted to general information, including the list of States in the country, languages recognised by the Constitution, districts in the State and general information about them, information about seasons, stars and time under the Hindu almanac, numbers in Arabic, Roman and Kannada, various measurements, weights and measures in the British metric system, temperatures, the major rivers of India and the world, important mountain peaks, the major currencies of the world and world time zones.

While the compact disc version would cost Rs. 250, the hardbound version of the four volumes would cost Rs. 750. Prof. Arora said the dictionary would be sold at a discounted price of Rs. 690 on the day of its release.

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