Srinagar: Pakistan’s Urdu Dictionary Board (UDB) is all set to launch a 22-volume Urdu dictionary online.

“There are 22 volumes carrying 22,000 pages and 264,000 words. We have decided to upload it on our website udb.gov.pk,” UDB’s chief editor Aqeel Abbas Jafri told Dawn on Sunday.

The board has set May 20 as the deadline to make the dictionary available for online users, Dawn said.

“It will have two features: one, the lughat [dictionary] will be accompanied by a search engine, that is, you can search for words individually and listen to their correct, or different versions of, pronunciation; two, we used to publish a journal Urdunama whose 54 editions were published. Their scanned editions will be available online as well. Apart from that, we have 1,500 rare books printed as far back as 1920 that we intend to scan and upload on a website like Rekhta’s. We have sent the proposal to the authorities concerned for that,”Jafri was quoted in the report as saying, adding that the online activity will benefit not only Pakistani readers but readers and lovers of the Urdu language all across the world.