News Ceremony commemorating the publication of “Japanese-Malayalam Dictionary” was held in Kerala, India.

“Japanese-Malayalam Dictionary” was published in India (Kerala State) and its memorial ceremony was held in Trivandrum, the capital of Kerala State, in March 2019.

Many people including the Minister and Secretary of Kerala’s Culture and the Japanese DCM in India participated in the ceremony. Prof. Jun Takashima and Prof. Makoto Minegishi, ILCAA staffs who are mainly involved in the compilation of “Japanese-Malayalam Dictionary” also attended the ceremony and received the compliments from the people of Kerala.

The photo above shows Prof. TAKASHIMA receiving a shawl called angavastra, which represents respect, and in the photo below, the Ministry of Cultural Affairs presented the dictionary to the DCM (the third person from the left is Professor Nair of the State Institute of Languages, the fourth is Rani George, Secretary of Kerala’s Culture Ministry, the next are the Japanese DCM Asari, Culture Minster Mr. Balan, the author Dr. Nambiar, Prof. Takashima, and Prof. Minegishi)

The Japanese-Malayalam Dictionary authored by Dr. Nambiar and published by the State Institute of Languages (Government of Kerala) in March 2019 is a book format version of the Electronic Japanese-Malayalam Dictionary developed by the Research Institute for Languages and Cultures of Asia and Africa (ILCAA)

IRC Project

Japanese-Malayalam Dictionary (Online Dictionary)

Malayalam is one of the Dravidian languages spoken in South India, and an official language of the state of Kerala. It is a major language with about 35 million speakers (Census, 2011). Malayalam is a language becoming increasingly important to maintain the relationship with the Indian IT industry, but a full-fledged Japanese Dictionary for Malayalam had not been created yet. Thus, the publication of a dictionary with over 1500 pages is a remarkable accomplishment.

Dr. K.P.P. Nambiar, the author won Dr. Hermann Gundert Endowment Award,