The story so far:

In alignment with the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020, to impart education in the Indian languages for an improved understanding and improved teaching-learning outcome, the government has initiated technical education, including engineering and medicine in Indian languages. The All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) has introduced “AICTE Technical Book Writing and Translation” in 12 scheduled Indian languages. The government is also collaborating with technical education departments to distribute one set of books in Indian languages for the libraries of each degree and diploma-level institution. The Commission for Scientific and Technical Terminology (CSTT) has also launched a website offering technical terms in all 22 official Indian languages for various educational subjects.

What is CSTT?

The CSTT, established on October 1, 1961, focuses on preparing standardised scientific and technical terminology in Indian languages. It regularly publishes a range of bilingual, trilingual, and multilingual glossaries, definitional dictionaries, and monographs, besides publishing quarterly journals named ‘Vigyan Garima Sindhu’ and ‘Gyan Garima Sindhu’. The CSTT also takes up the publication of university-level textbooks through its Granth Academies, textbook boards, and publication cells located in various parts of the country.

It also undertakes the publication of administrative and various departmental glossaries that are widely used by government departments, institutions, research laboratories, autonomous organisations, and public sector units besides organising workshops, seminars, symposiums, conferences, orientation, and training programmes to increase the use and popularise the standard terminology of Hindi and other Indian languages.

What is the name of the new website and how does it operate?

The CSTT glossary search website, “Shabd,” is hosted at ‘https://shabd.education.gov.in’. “Shabd” is a data server that features all the glossaries of CSTT in digital searchable mode. Other institutions or agencies preparing dictionaries can also host their work in digital form on this platform. The aim is to showcase a central repository for all the terminologies prepared in or for Indian Languages.

The platform allows users to search for scientific and technical terms in Indian languages and provide feedback on existing equivalents prepared by CSTT. The search options include language, subject, dictionary type, and language pairs. It also allows users to search specific glossaries or the entire collection.

What was the process of collating the words?

The CSTT prepares the terminologies through the Expert Advisory Committees consisting of subject and language experts, along with linguists, who are focused on finding out the equivalent terms in the specific subject areas and language. The terminology prepared by CSTT is used by Granth Academies, textbook boards, and publication cells for textbook preparation and is also used by institutions such as NTA, NCERT, NTM, AICTE, and so on. The “Shabd” website contains words taken from various definitional dictionaries, glossaries, and reference materials that have been published by the CSTT over the years.

When was the portal launched and what has been the response so far?

The site first went active in March this year and since then, it has had 1,36,968 hits from across the country and the world.

How many words drawn from how many subjects are available on the portal?

The entire collection which as of now includes about 322 glossaries has about (21,84,050 headwords). This covers disciplines in Humanities, Social Sciences, Medical Sciences, Engineering, Agricultural Sciences, and more than 60 subjects such as Journalism, Public Administration, Chemistry, Botany, Zoology, Psychology, Physics, Economics, Ayurveda, Mathematics, Civil and Electrical Engineering, Computer Science, Political Science, Agriculture, Culture, Transport, Geology, Capital Market, Cell Biology, Broadcasting, Music and Finearts, CSIT, AIML, Linguistics, Forestry, Entomology, Plant Pathology, Soil Science, Nematology, Sericulture, LIS, and others.

Prof Girish Nath Jha, Chairperson of CSTT, says, “The institution is working hard to enable Indian languages as per the huge mandate given to it by our government and our constitution. We hope to progress faster by using AI and related digital technologies in future”.

The Commission for Scientific and Technical Terminology (CSTT), under the aegis of the Union Education Ministry, has launched a unique website which provides technical terms in all 22 official Indian languages.

The web portal ‘shabd.education.gov.in’ aims to be a central repository for all the terminologies prepared for Indian languages. Besides all the glossaries of CSTT, other institutions or agencies having such dictionaries are also able to host their work in digital form on this platform.

As of now, 450 dictionaries amounting to three million words are available on the website, senior officials said.

Through this platform, the users are not only be able to search the equivalent terms of scientific and technical terminology in Indian languages but also be able to register their feedback for the equivalents already prepared by the CSTT, they said. The user will have various options for search, whether based on languages, subjects, dictionary type, or language pairs. Not only this, the user can choose to search in a specific glossary or through the entire collection.

The launch of the website assumes significance amid efforts to provide technical education, including in medicine and engineering, in Indian languages.

The CSTT, was set up in December 1960, with the objective to evolve and define scientific and technical terms in Hindi and all Indian languages. It also routinely publishes a large number of textbooks and monographs besides publishing quarterly journals named Vigyan Garima Sindhu and Gyan Garima Sindhu.

It also undertakes publication of administrative and various departmental glossaries that are widely used by various government departments, institutions, research laboratories, autonomous organisation and public sector units besides organising workshops, seminars, symposiums, conferences, orientation and training programmes to increase the use and popularise the standard terminology of Hindi and other Indian languages.

The officials said that from March 2024, when the portal was launched, there have been 1,22,643 hits to the site from many areas of the country as well as abroad.

Explaining the process of collating the words, Professor Girish Nath Jha, chairman of CSTT, said special subject-based committees focused on finding out the words in their specific areas while separate language committees collated the standard versions. The commission was aided by the National Translation Mission of the Department of Higher Education of the Education Ministry.

The words were also taken from various definitional dictionaries, glossaries, and reference materials which have been published by the CSTT over the years.