Alipurduar, Aug. 27: A lexicon on the 10 tribal languages of north Bengal — Multilingual Phonetic Lexicon on Terai Dooars Tribal Speeches — compiled by Krishna Priya Bhattacharjee is ready for release.

The foreword of the lexicon, the first of its kind in Bengal, is written by academician Pabitra Sarkar.

Bhattacharjee, who comes from Kamakhyaguri village of Alipurduar subdivision, is an inspector in the state backward classes welfare department. His profession, along with his childhood days spent among tribals, had inspired him to work on the 10 tribal languages.

Fifteen years have gone into the making of the dictionary, the first part — Dooarser Lokayata Sabdakosh — of which was published in 1990. But the dictionary then was compiled in Bengali script instead of the International Phonetic Alphabet used in the second part.

The lexicon contains words found in 13 languages. Of them, the 10 languages are those of the Boro, Rava, Toto, Garo, Dhimal, Kurukh, Kharia, Santali, Sadri and Rajbanshi. The remaining three languages — Nepali, English, Bengali — have been included as mediums of wider communication.

The lexicon contains around 1,150 words from each language. The tribals use these words regularly. The dictionary has 46 chapters with the key words in English and a word index at the end. According to Bhattacharjee, north Bengal has more than 30 tribal communities, whose existence is threatened because of the absence of scripts.

“Pabitra Sarkar and Mahesweta Devi have been inspiring me from 1990. It is for them that I could complete the work,” Bhattacharjee said.

Mahesweta Devi, an expert on tribal affairs, said over phone from Calcutta: “Krishna Priya has been working on the tribals of Dooars for a long time. The methodology used by him is unique. The lexicon is a rare collection. The compilation will have an international demand because of the International Phonetic Alphabet.”

She added that the great tribal scholar Ganesh Devi had appreciated his work and taken the initiative to publish the dictionary from Baroda.