A Mundari English Dictionary

The author reveals that the Mundari English Dictionary is a byproduct of the master researchers and scintillating scholarship of Sarat Chandra Roy, whose anthropological work on the Mundas of Chotanagpur and Santal Parganas remains unsurpassed even till today. His compilation of about six hundred words of Mundari language in a note book contained the seed out of which this dictionary has flourished. On the eve of its compilation about fifty years ago, Mundari language was spoken by over 60,000 Mundas and other akin tribals. The dialects of the Mundari family of speech, to which Santa, Birhar and other tongues belong, are, besides Chotanagpur, also spoken in the Santal Parganas which adjoin some of the Bengal districts. It is on account of this geographical spread over of the Mundari family of speech that a large number of words from Bengali, Hindi and Sanskrit have crept into the fabric of the Mundari language. A lot of painstaking efforts have gone in coming the English equivalents of the tribal Mundari language. Despite a lot of transformation in the tribal world of the Mundas, there appears to be no depreciation in the value and relevance of his master dictionary for the anthropologists, linguists and administrators engaged in the onerous task of tribal studies. The subject of this book is Anthropology/Tribal Studies.