Chhapra, Aug. 22: Badri Narayan Pandey (75), a retired teacher, has compiled a dictionary comprising English, Hindi, Sanskrit, Persian and German words.

“A five-language dictionary — English, Hindi, Sanskrit, Persian and German words — is a valuable work and makes for an interesting read. Please send a copy of this to language department of the Max Mueller Bhavan, New Delhi, the German cultural institution in India,” wrote Jutta Jain Neubauer, culture department, German Embassy, in New Delhi to Pandey in a letter on April 11.

The letter is an acknowledgment of the work done by Pandey. It has taken him 10 years to complete the work.

Pandey, a resident of Hardan Basu Lane under Bhagwan Bazar police station, retired as a teacher in 1998 and then started working on the dictionary.

Pandey told The Telegraph that maximum words in the dictionary are very similar in pronunciation and meaning. Explaining the similarities, he said Sanskrit word ashva is similar to Persian asp and the Sanskrit word shala is similar to German sal and the meaning of the two is the same. This inspired him to write a dictionary of similar words with similar pronunciation.

He said: “There are 3,781 words in five languages in this dictionary.” He said the dictionary is right now of 334 pages and he is planning to expand it. This dictionary is yet to be uploaded on the web but is available at different stalls in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh.