Old Marathi Dictionary

The Old Marathi Dictionary app is a product of the Digital South Asia Library program (http://dsal.uchicago.edu) at the University of Chicago (http://www.uchicago.edu). The app offers a fulltext searchable version of S. G. Tulpule's and Anne Feldhaus's "A dictionary of Old Marathi," Mumbai: Popular Prakashan, 1999.

The Old Marathi Dictionary app can be used both online and offline. The online
version interacts with a database that runs remotely on a server at the University of Chicago. The offline version uses a database that is created on the Android device upon first download.

By default, the app operates in the online mode.

The Old Marathi Dictionary app allows users to conduct both headword and fulltext queries.

The default mode for this app is to search headwords. To search for a headword,
touch the search box at the top (magnifying glass icon) to expose the on-screen keyboard and begin searching. Headwords can be entered in Devanagari, accented latin characters, and unaccented latin characters. For example, headword searches for अमृतवेळ, amṛtaveḷa, or amrtavela will all yield the definition "an auspicious time."

After entering three characters in the search box, a scrollable list of search suggestions will pop up. Touch the word to search for and it will automatically fill in the search field. Or ignore suggestions and enter the search term completely. To execute the search, touch the return button on the keyboard.

For fulltext searching and advanced search options, select the "Search Options" sub-menu in the overflow menu (usually the three vertical dots icon at the top right corner of the screen).

Search results come first in a numbered list that displays the Marathi headword, the accented latin transliteration of the headword, and a chunk of the definition. To see a full definition, touch the headword link.

The full result page presents definitions in a format that allows the user to select terms to copy and paste for further dictionary searching or for conducting a web search on the term (given an internet connection). In online mode, the full result page also has a page number link that the user can touch to get the full page context of the definition. Link arrows at the top of the full page allow the user to go to previous and next pages in the dictionary.

This is a dictionary of the Marathi language in the Old Marathi period. It is meant to be used in conjunction with a dictionary of modern Marathi or by speakers of modern Marathi. Words occurring in the same form and with the same meanings in Old Marathi and modern Marathi have generally not been included in this dictionary. For Old Marathi words not found here, the reader is advised to consult Molesworth's Marathi-English dictionary or another dictionary of modern Marathi.

Chronologically Marathi can be divided into three periods: Old Marathi, Middle Marathi, and modern Marathi. The earliest stage, Old Marathi, began in the eighth century and continued until the middle of the fourteenth century.

This is a dictionary of the Marathi language in the Old Marathi period. The Marathi of this time is to a great extent homogeneous in form, and it is fairly clearly distinguishable from the Prakrit and Apabhraṃśa languages that preceded it as well as from the subsequent Middle Marathi (c. 1350-1800).

Intended for use both by scholars and by native speakers of modern Marathi who wish to read Old Marathi texts, the dictionary gives meanings in both English and Marathi and
provides illustrative citations of the meanings of the words. It is our hope that, besides helping to make Old Marathi literature accessible, this dictionary can also provide a basis for dictionaries of subsequent periods of the language, and eventually for an historical dictionary of Marathi.