By MI Reporter

Bengaluru: The reprint of a dictionary compiled by a French Catholic priest in 1855 has been released.

The Karnataka Kannada Catholic Priests Conference reprented the Canarense Latinum Dictionarium, the Kannada-Latin Dictionary, compiled and published by Father Pierre Auguste Bouteloup.

The dictionary was released by Kannada writer Baraguru Ramachandrappa at a function held here on January 22.

The Paris Foreign Mission Society member Father Bouteloup from the diocese of Le Mans, France, came to India in 1850.

He spent 22 years in Karnataka, and 20 years in Kerala.

The Kannada-Latin Dictionary was one of the several books he published.

Fr. Bouteloup became a rector of Bengaluru’s St. Joseph’s Seminary in 1851. After learning printing technology, he started the Catholic Printing Press with the help of by Bishop Etienne Louis Charbonnaux.

The French Catholic priest decided to publish the dictionary after realizing that the local language was crucial for communication.

The Kannada to Latin edition of 1,008 pages in demy 1/8th size is famous and has been mentioned in British and Russian catalogues.

The dictionary, along with a Latin-to-Kannada dictionary published in 1861 by the Bishop Etienne Louis Charbonnaux, is kept in the archives of St. Mary’s Basilica in Bengaluru.