You guys will rock!
Arup Kumar Nath*
It has been great to be a part of such a noble endeavour of an online community making the first ever online Assamese dictionary. In fact, we can say it is the first ever online multilingual dictionary of the languages of the North East. If my memory is not betraying me, it was somewhere in mid June 2007, when I first came to see the URL of Xobdo.org. Like any other day in the office, that day also I had to consult two of the most popular English online dictionaries viz, Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English and Merriam Webster dictionaryfor my official work. All of a sudden, one idea clicked my mind: ‘Why can’t we have an Assamese online dictionary?’ I started surfing on the net and immediately discovered XOBDO and thus became a member of it.
Initially I had provided linguistic inputs to the Assamese entries in the dictionary along with Priyankoo, Partha, Bikram (although he is not from linguistics background, I would love to count him in this group because of his knowledge and passion for language) and others of the linguistic team and tried to contribute some Assamese words. It has been always a 
learning process for me. People from different background come with different viewpoints to our healthy discussions which really enrich our knowledge. Apart from that, I got to create an online network for myself and made some good friends as well.
From the lexicographical point of view, XOBDO has almost attained a very good standard to compete with other online dictionaries available in the cyber world not only in Indian languages but other foreign languages as well. Although, it still requires some modification to fulfill the criteria of a widely used multilingual dictionary, it is growing by leaps and bounds. I am extremely happy with the fact that it has been always following the descriptive Saussurean approach of language which is why; people hailing from different parts of Assam never hesitate to use their regional varieties in this dictionary. It would be great if we encourage our contributors to enter all the regional varieties of a word of Assamese language to the corresponding standard word.
I hope, going forward, this dictionary will not only fulfill the need of a multilingual dictionary of the languages of the North East but also pave its way for big projects like making online academic dictionaries for various disciplines with the help of experts from their respective fields. I wish a very long life of our beloved XOBDO and thank each and every member of this online community for putting up such hard work for it and showing responsibility for our mother tongues. You guys will rock!
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*The author is a PhD Scholar, Centre for Linguistics, School of Language, Literature and Culture Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi-67. He is a Linguistics Team member of XOBDO.
