Find an English match online in Marathi,Hindi and now Gujarati

Khandbahale,CEO of khandbahale.com,said,“We were the first to launch an online Marathi-English dictionary. Hindi being the national language followed,and Gujarati was the latest addition for the simple reason that it is the ‘language of trade’,and one of the most widely spoken languages in the country. Outside Gujarat it’s most common in Mumbai and Pune.”

Available free on http://www.khandbahale.com,the Marathi and Hindi dictionaries boast a database of 4.5 lakh words each. The English database is five-lakh-word strong. The Gujarati database of a lakh words,is growing fast. “We have a team of six staffers and 50 non-profit researchers from India,US and UK who help us in the compilation work,” added Vilas Khandbahale,advisor to the project.

The management claims that technically,it’s the only platform-independent dictionary in the country,which means it can be accessed on computers as well as mobile phones having Internet options,irrespective of the operating system such as Linux or Windows. “There are plans of introducing a downloadable version,but the only disadvantage is that the downloadable version has to be updated (by the user) from time to time,” said Khandbahale.

Since its inception in January last year,the online dictionary has been recording an average of 75,000 hits per day or over 20 lakh per month. “We have also been featured by Google as among the ‘100 most preferred websites for translation’ in 2009,” added Khandbahale.

One of the toughest tasks in compiling a dictionary is covering the ever-increasing database. Nilesh Ghodke,designer,Khandbahale.com,said they have a system that,at the end of the day,sorts out words typed by users,the meanings of which are not available in the existing database. We then update the same.”

The management plans to introduce a user-enabled version of the dictionary with the help of which users can add or remove words and update synonyms.