Darjeeling, Sept. 3: The DGHC and the political parties are still at loggerheads over the issue of implementing Nepali as an official language in the hills even after a decade of being included in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution. This, however, has not stopped the Central Institute of Indian Languages (CIIL), Mysore, from compiling words for the database of the first Bengali to Nepali dictionary.

CIIL has so far organised four workshops for the compilation. The last was convened at David Hare Training College in Calcutta in August.

During the 10-day-long workshop, a team of experts comprising Krishnaraj Ghatani, Haren Allay, Aim Pathak, Rudraraj Maskey, Yogen Darnal and Taramani Moktan discussed the various aspects of the Nepali language.

The work of selecting Bengali words, the translations and meanings of which will be available in Nepali will be supervised by a team comprising experts on Bengali literature from Calcutta. The team includes Arpita Chatterjee, Uttara Ray, Chandrika Bhattacharjee, Satarnpa Dutta Mazumdar, Sumana Chakraborty and Ayan Mazumdar. Work is proceeding at a hectic pace and the team has already compiled 12,000 words.

The Eastern Regional Language Centre, Bhubaneswar, is also helping coordinate the entire project. According to A.K. Basu, coordinator of CIIL, the team will start on compilation work for a Nepali to Bengali dictionary after completion of the present one.

CIIL has already completed compilations on pictorial proverbs in Nepali, a pictorial glossary, nursery rhymes and an intensive course in Nepali.