Dictionary Review: A Dictionary of Urdu, Classical Hindi and English by John T. Platts

 Dictionaries are not like cars, computers or smart-phones where the latest is always the best.

Searching for a Urdu phrase آموختہ پَڑھنا (āmokhtāh paṛhnā), I looked up three printed Urdu-English dictionaries. Here are the entries, although I had to omit the headwords and other words written in Perso-Arabic script in some cases:

1. Standard Twentieth Century Dictionary: Urdu into English: Prof. Bashir Ahmad Qureshi; Educational Publishing House; Delhi; Edition: 1997 => آموختہ “āmokhtāh N.M. (arch.) previous lesson; ADJ.&. SUF. learnt, taught [P. آموختن āmokthan]

2. Oxford Urdu-English Dictionary: S.M. Salimuddin & Sahil Anjum; Oxford University Press; First Ed. 2013 => آموختہ “āmokhtāh [adj.] taught, learnt; [n.m.] previous lesson

3. A Dictionary of Urdū, Classical Hindī and English; John T. Platts; First Ed. 1884, This Edition 2006; Manohar, New Delhi => “āmokhtā [perf. part. of آموختن āmokhtān….] part. adj. Taught, learned; -- s.m. That which has been learned; an old lesson:-- āmokhtā paṛhnā, To read over old lessons, to revise

If you are a translator from Urdu which of these would you buy? A dictionary, first published in the second half of the nineteenth century, still remains as relevant as it has been on the day it was first published. This 1259-page tome is an invaluable lexicon for Urdu translators. I have just cited one example but there are numerous others which make this dictionary one of a kind.

Manohar deserves praise for making this dictionary available in print. Perhaps in the next reprint, the publisher would consider some improvement on the small typeface and the quality of paper?

© Subhamay Ray