Linguists down the centuries have likened language to a living organism. That, which reflects the world of the people who speak in it, adapt it, coin new words, while relegating some to the past. Any exercise of documenting a language then, is really an exercise in recording the history and culture of its speakers — something that acquires greater significance if the community is in a state of flux; the ties with its roots having weakened with the brunt of time.

The idea of the first official East Indian dictionary was born in July 2012 with this concern in mind. One of the original inhabitant communities of Mumbai was losing the battle against an ever-expanding metro, forcing many of the members to give up their traditional occupations and settle abroad. As a result, the East Indian dialect has fewer speakers today, many of them switching to English or Marathi.