IOSR brings out technical glossary for engineering education

BHUBANESWAR: The Bhubaneswar-based Institute of Odia Studies & Research (IOSR) has prepared a glossary of 54,000 technical words in Odia which will be used in engineering education in the language.

The first-of-its-kind glossary in a regional Indian language has been approved by the AICTE recently. Director of AICTE Sunil Kumar Luthra said the glossary would serve as a model for other states and would soon be uploaded to the e-Kumbh portal of AICTE from where students can download it.

Odia researcher and chief coordinator of the translation initiative Subrat Prusty said most of the technical words used in engineering are of English, German, French and Latin origin and finding their regional translation is a difficult process.

“For example, the Hindi translation of computer is ‘sanganak’ and a few Odia students have started using it even if it is not an Odia word. This is why we have created a glossary of technical words which remain the same in both English and Odia languages, for easy understanding of the students. So, a computer will be written as computer in the Odia engineering book. In the absence of such a glossary, students usually use whatever translated words they pick up from search engines, which is wrong,” he said.