In September 2014 SIL International Nepal conducted a Rapid Word Collection workshop in collaboration with Mother Tongue Centre Nepal. Fifty-four Mid-Eastern Tharu speakers from 12 different districts participated in the workshop. Participants learned and applied a process of rapid word collection using a method of elicitation by semantic domains developed by SIL. Within the two week workshop the group completed word collection in over 1,800 semantic domains, glossed the entries in Nepali, and keyboarded the data using a program called Flex. After the workshop editors began to edit the words collected and that has continued up to the point of publication. Two review workshops have also been held.
Our desire from the beginning has been that many people from the community would contribute to the dictionary. It is our hope that this dictionary will continue to be developed and expanded in the coming years, and that it will be a significant step in the ongoing development and standardization of Mid-Eastern Tharu.
SIL has been privileged to play a small part in helping to bring forth this dictionary to showcase and promote the richness and diversity of one of Nepal’s many languages. We look forward to serving many more language communities in Nepal in a similar way.
As the workshop coordinator, I want to extend my thanks to all the Mid-Eastern Tharu people who attended the various workshops, the editors (Shailendra Chaudhary, Gita Panjiyar and Sunil Chaudhary), to MTCN staff for their practical support, and to my colleagues at SIL (Verna Stutzman, Dr. Netra Mani Rai and Diwakar Man Shrestha). It has been a great pleasure working with you all! Gorlagi!
Mari-Sisko Khadgi
Associate Director for Language Development
SIL International Nepal