123 years old Kannada-English school dictionary

Tara was sorting out her parents' collection of books, albums and Arti-crafts. An old book fascinated me, the papers  had gone brittle and sadly a few pages of the preface missing. 

The preface does touch upon the authentic feel of a mother's tongue and the unavoidable influence of other languages. I concur with the author while samskrita is elegant, dignified it is also artificial and is fit for rhetoric! (It does put me off when pandits constantly quote Sanskrit. Anyway my feelings are personal and may be another blog to speak about it.)

The inclusion of words from other languages depend on so many factors!We Kannadigas had to cope with a lot of foreign words either adapted or imposed on us as we were often at the receiving end. It is heartening to note that,  Rev. J Bucher and Rev Ferdinand Kittel appreciated Kannada language enough to devote their time for its study.   We do owe a lot to them.

          

I guess Tara’s parents would have used the dictionary during their school time as they moved from Kannada to English. 

The book  also gives us a bit of our colonial history. 
Rev. J Bucher wrote the preface and published this dictionary in the year 1899

Great that book is still in demand and is available. It perhaps would have been a few rupees those days! Rev. Bucher gives all the credit to Rev. F Kittel for the dictionary. 

I borrow, courtesy  Wikipedia,  information about this remarkable person. I see that Kannadigas have acknowledged his memory by renaming Austin town as Ferdinand Kittel town. Also have installed a statue on MG Road. Bangalore.