Jamshedpur, Jan. 28: Santhali words like baha, puthi and dak adaye may sound familiar to some.For others, there will be a unique dictionary to explain meanings of words in seven languages. A brainchild of Jamshedpur Women’s College, the first edition of Rainbow Dictionary, using British English as its base language, would be launched in the first week of February.

To be out in three parts, the first edition would have words from alphabets A to F. About 500 editions of the first part would be used by colleges under Ranchi University. Copies would also be sent to UGC, which is partly funding the project, and through it to colleges across India.

“In 2006, when UGC conferred the college with the Potential for Excellence Award, we had promised to work on this unique project. Now we are almost through with our first phase,” said principal Shukla Mohanty.

Developed by a group of 10 faculty members, the dictionary would give meanings and phonetic sounds of words in English, Hindi, Oriya, Urdu, Bengali, Sanskrit and Santhali.

Department heads concerned have taken care of the respective languages and help has been sought from Santhali scholar Digambar Hansda.

“Our idea behind the dictionary was to make learning useful and not just bombard students with difficult words and phrases,” said Anita Chaudhary, a senior faculty member.

Though work on the manual version of the dictionary is almost over, the college authorities have decided to give the dictionary an online avatar to be used by college students.

In a recent move, the college has procured a new language software through which multi-language translations can happen instantly.

“Once we launch the first edition, work on the online version would begin and the later editions would be launched simultaneously,” said Mohanty.