Comprehensive Online Dictionary by Tina Margalitadze Georgian Journal
The new dictionary (www.dictionary.ge) is equally good for translating contemporary texts as well as archaic materials; it contains thousands of special terminology of various fields; the user-friendly lexicographic apparatus of the dictionary makes it so widely usable that it provides help to a person of any age and skill in any human field of activity. In a word, the new online English-Georgian dictionary is going to soon become a member of every Georgian family, a consultant to every Georgian-speaking person having to do with the English language anywhere around the globe. The dictionary allows renovation on permanent basis. Actually, all of us are welcome to participate in the process of its improvement by sending our comments and wishes to the Editorial Board. If team-work means anything to anybody in the world, it certainly is this dictionary. Professor Tina Margalitadze is overwhelmingly knowledgeable not only in compiling and editing dictionaries, but she also knows perfectly well who she should be working with to receive a product like her new dictionary. She can and is really proud of the perfect team of outstanding linguists and computer specialists who have done more than their utmost (literally!) to first create and then successfully launch the Comprehensive Online English-Georgian Dictionary. Members of the Editorial Board are Tina's wonderful friends and colleagues: Giorgi Meladze, Professors Ariane Chanturia and Shukia Apridonidze, and Doctor of Sciences Gela Khundadze. Without their talent, professionalism and relentless dedication to work, this dictionary would never have been possible to be online. MARGALITI is purely and truly the result of tens of years of their heroic nonstop work and huge love for both the Georgian and the English languages. I talked to some of the participants in the event and certainly to Professor Margalitadze herself, head of Tbilisi State University Lexicographic Center Dimitri Sashkin, Minister of Education and Sciences of Georgia, having in mind that the University and the team which had been working on the Dictionary for tens of years, underlined that one of the greatest advantages of the Dictionary is its being an online tool, which makes it available to people free of charge and easily accessible for any interested person. Professor Innes Merabishvili emphasized that the new online dictionary is an outstanding reference book of its kind in every possible way, but it would never have been made so optimal if not for unequalled professionalism of Tinatin Margalitadze and the team which she had set up to do the job. Without this level of lexicography in our country, we would never be able to be adequately connected with the rest of the world, and Georgia would have never be seen by the outside world as it should. Giorgi Khubua, Rector of Tbilisi State University, having given the highest possible evaluation to the done job, underscored the importance of the event in the cultural life of Georgia. Suffice it to say that the Dictionary contains 100 thousand entries one can certainly understand the magnitude of efforts dedicated to its creation. This is a product of classic lexicography and is clearly standing out from anything that had been created before. Tina Margalitadze, the author, editor, founder and fund-provider of the Comprehensive Online Dictionary, as modest as she happens to be, said that the result of a half a century job of her personal life-time has finally arrived, which is the result of an outstanding team work of genuinely dedicated professionals of this country. It is they who deserve every piece of the bestowed credit. ÿWow! I have never in my life seen a person who takes it so easy the success she has achieved. Her work might practically be comparable to the heritage of those great Georgian patriots whose intellectual influence on this nation will never fade away. I also wanted to know the opinion of a well-known Georgian linguist and journalist Nugzar Ruhadze, who was not able to attend the event, although he was very much in the swim of the matter. As he told me on the phone from America, Georgia does not yet know what has just happened to it and its culture. People will soon be wondering how could they possibly manage without this great reference book, especially because it is online. This is a huge change in our linguistic life and the difference will be felt before we know it. There is one more thing he added to his brief comment: 'It is very easy to pronounce laudations at the presentation, after everything is done so well, but we have to also know that this tremendous national intellectual monument would never have been erected without the selfless readiness of professor Tinatin Margalitadze, who spent her personal self and her own personal funds to put it right into the hands of her beloved, but totally unsuspecting Georgian people'. I don't think these words need any extension . . . |
January 26, 2010 was an important day in Georgia's cultural life. This is a memorable day for anybody in the world who is interested in the Georgian language in general. Translators from English into Georgian and from Georgian into English have received a long-cherished online dictionary which is more comprehensive and thus more helpful than any other English-Georgian dictionary published ever before in the history of this nation. The official presentation took place on April 26, 2010 at spacious premises of the TBC Bank which was attended by well-known specialists of the field, scientists, educationalists, the colleagues of Georgian lexicographers from abroad and journalists. This presentation will for a long time remain talk of the country. Its main message was that Georgia is a country of a unique linguistic inheritance which is now treasured in the outstanding contemporary dictionary called MARGALITI. 'Margaliti' is Georgian for 'pearl', and it really is a pearl among the books of Georgia. Let us do a favor to its creator and editor professor Tina Margalitadze and ascribe the name of the dictionary not only to her last name. 'Pearl' is the key word here! This is the quintessence of all! 
