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Marius Yanthan with a copy of his Lotha (Naga) English dictionary.[/caption]
Dimapur, April 26 (EMN): A new Lotha-to-English dictionary has been released and is expected to hit the book stores by the end of this week. The dictionary consisting of 1.6 lakh words is written by Nagaland ex-cop Marius Yanthan.
The author said in a statement that he started working on the dictionary in 2013, and took him six long years to complete the first edition. He added that he has made all the efforts “to include all possible words in general use, in written forms and also conversational Lotha dialect” in the self-published dictionary, which is said to be a “first of its kind.”
Yanthan stated that Lotha dialect is very rich in terms of words, figure of speech, combination of words and phrases, especially in spoken language. He lamented that “many Lothas, especially the present generation born and brought up in towns do not know how to speak in their mother tongue properly.”
“The dictionary has been designed and brought out to meet the need of the first time learners. This is the first comprehensive Lotha-English dictionary,” he said.
Born in Lakhuti village, Wokha, Yanthan graduated with honours in English literature from Dibrugarh Kanoi College, Assam. He joined Nagaland Police Service through competitive examination conducted by the Nagaland Public Service Commission before retiring as an Indian Police Service officer.