Siliguri, April 13: Children attending the 40-odd Lepcha night schools in the three hill subdivisions of Darjeeling will find a treasure trove of knowledge about their community in the second edition of the Lepcha-English Encyclopaedic Dictionary that will be introduced in the institutions soon.

The book was published in October last year.

“The first Lepcha-English dictionary was compiled by General G.B. Mainwaring, an Englishman, in 1898. However, the first dictionary compiled by an indigenous Lepcha, K.P. Tamsang, was published in 1980. The book went out of stock and we undertook the task of coming out with the second edition by adding more words about the community’s religion, flora and fauna and natural resources,” Lyangsong Tamsang Lepcha, the editor of the second edition, told The Telegraph today.

The book includes the mening of almost everything that is relevant to the Lepchas, he added.

“The state despite our continuous demand has not introduced Lepcha language in the government schools. We are undeterred by this indifference and have started night schools to teach the children of our community their language, culture and literature. The dictionary will be supplied to these night schools so that children can refer to them,” said Tamsang.

He added that the book will also be helpful to anthropologists, scholars and writers interested in studying the community.

Tamsang along with two others started compiling Lepcha words and their meanings in both Lepcha and English from October 2008. Within a year, 1,100 copies of the second edition were published. “We have made an addition of around 500 Lepcha words to the existing 26,000 words,” Tamsang said.

The words and their meanings are written in Rong, the Lepcha script, and in English.

“Michael Way, a British national, who is interested in studying the Lepchas has helped us financially to publish the book,” Tamsang said.