Dictionaries urdu to english4/30/2023 ![]() ![]() Scholars back then) was the lingua franca of the land and they not only began learning it but also compiling its grammar and dictionaries. Higher than that of glossaries, Urdu owes much to the European scholars who compiled Urdu’s early grammars and dictionaries.Īpparently, the Europeans arriving in the subcontinent had realised that Hindustani (Urdu was often referred to as Hindustani with some other slightly variant spellings by European Though they were of rudimentary nature and today we would be reluctant to give them any status Titled ‘Navadir-ul-alfaaz’, Aarzoo’s work was later compiled and annotated by Dr Syed Abdullah and published by Anjuman Taraqqi-i-Urdu, giving it a new lease of life.īut the earliest attempts at compiling an Urdu dictionary are much older than that. Scholar of repute, severely criticised the dictionary and in doing so wrote a treatise that became a piece of lexicography itself. But Sirajuddin Ali Khan Aarzoo (1687/88-1765), a poet and It manifests the high pedestal the Persian language occupied in the subcontinent until just a few centuries ago.Ĭompiled by Abdul Waase Haansvi in the late 17th century, ‘Gharaib-ul-lughaat’ was first concrete effort by a native. Strangely enough, this ‘first ever dictionary of Urdu’ enlists Urdu words but explains them in Persian. Though some of his arguments and evidences were quite convincing, most of Urdu’s scholars still favour the idea that it was basically Khusrau’s work but was interpolated over the centuries.Īside from ‘Nisaab namas’, ‘Gharaib-ul-lughaat’ is believed to be Urdu’s first regular or systematic dictionary. Hafiz Mahmood Sherani tried to establish that ‘Khaaliq baari’ was not Khusrau’s work and was compiled a few centuries later in the Mogul era. ‘Khaaliq baari’ is one of the earliest such versified, bilingual dictionary and is said to be compiled by Ameer Khusrau. Known as ‘Nisaab nama’, these were the kind of poems that explained the meanings of Persian and Arabic words in Urdu/Hindi. The earliest of Urdu dictionaries, if they can truly be called so, though I doubt it, were the versified wordbooks intended as textbooks. Interestingly, aside from a few early ones, most of the early Persian-Persian dictionaries were compiled in the subcontinent in the pre-Mogul era and these dictionaries are still considered authentic in many respects even by Iranians. But before the compilation of Urdu dictionaries, Urdu words had started appearing in the Persian-Persian dictionaries compiled in the subcontinent. ![]() WHEN we have a look at the history of Urdu lexicography, we realise that the early Urdu dictionaries were compiled mostly by Europeans. ![]()
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