The Balochi language is the first ever complete online dictionary, with the title being Labzganj that has been officially introduced and is also accessible to the people. The opening has been termed as one of the significant milestones in the promotion, conservation and digital growth of the Balochi language that has traditionally depended on oral customs and scanty written material.
The Balochi Academy Quetta is a developed Natural Language Processing (NLP) initiative that has created Labzganj. It is the largest digital lexicon to date produced on Balochi, which represents decades of scholarly work and language work. The site will help to have the Balochi language enter the digital age and become more accessible to the speakers and learners worldwide.
The online dictionary has over 40,000 Balochi words well recorded with meanings and synonyms in English, Urdu and in Brahvi. The multilingualism of Labzganj allows utilizing it by a broad audience of customers, such as students, teaching experts, researchers, linguists, translators, and representatives of the Balochi diaspora who want not to lose touch with their native language.
In his speech at the opening of the dictionary, Habitan Umar, Chairman of the Balochi Academy and organizer of the NLP Balochi Project, noted that the dictionary was the result of decades of research. He has mentioned several earlier landmark works like Balochi Labzbalad by Jan Muhammad Dashti, the dictionary work of Dr Naseer Dashti and Panah Baloch, whose contributions formed a good basis in contemporary Balochi lexicographical works.
Academics and linguists have hailed Labzganj as a major move to the preservation, documentation and standardisation of the Balochi language. They observed that the existence of a digital dictionary will not only assist in formal education, research, and learning of languages but will also aid in preserving the Balochi to the future generations in a world that is becoming more digital.
