The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : All the world in Kannada

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Karnataka

Karnataka - Bangalore

All the world in Kannada

Staff Reporter

The first volume was brought out in December 1969
The encyclopaedia has over 15,000 pages

BANGALORE: It was around the late 1950s that the State Government decided to bring out an encyclopaedia in Kannada, the first of its kind in India, to help students of Kannada.

Nearly a decade later, the first volume was brought out by the University of Mysore in December 1969, just under a year after the work commenced.

As there was no parallel work on vernacular encyclopaedia when the work on Kannada encyclopaedia started, Encyclopaedia Britannica became the model. By 1981-1982 when the vernacular language encyclopaedia conference was held at Chennai, the Mysore University had already brought out several volumes of this general encyclopaedia.

So far, the Kuvempu Institute of Kannada Studies in Mysore University has brought out 14 volumes of General Encyclopaedia, and subject encyclopaedias in folk, zoology and Karnataka while the work on ancient history, geography, computer science and medical science in under way.

The encyclopaedia has over 15,000 pages containing information on varied fields and subjects with photographs and animation .

Passion

Octogenarian G.T. Narayan Rao, the encyclopaedia’s science editor, says: “We were driven by the passion for language and had received good grounding at the school level. When the offer to join the project came from writer D. Jaware Gowda, many of us accepted it.”

Apart from Mr. Rao, many noted writers, including H.S. Krishnaswamy Iyengar, N. Prahalad Rao and K.T. Veerappa, worked on the Kannada encyclopaedia project.

On the making of the encyclopaedia, Mr. Rao says: “Though the project faced shortage of staff, we were able to bring out the encyclopaedia.”

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