Commenting on the New English Dictionary, W.A. Craigie wrote: “The dictionary has not attempted to rival some of its predecessors in deliberate humour … such rare occasions for a smile as may be found in it are unintentional.” Well, this is the fate of lexicographers! No matter how hard they work, they will be chided by someone who has never attempted to be engaged in such back-breaking labour as compiling a dictionary. Even Samuel Johnson himself in his compilation, ‘A dictionary of the English language’, has defined the word ‘lexicographer’ as “a writer of dictionaries, a harmless drudge”. And yet there are plenty of occasions for a smile in his dictionary, for Johnson had a sharp wit. It was perhaps an intentional attempt on his part to make the thankless job of lexicography bearable. (I have quoted these words of Johnson’s with great satisfaction because I, too, am a harmless drudge: I have compiled dictionaries.)

He was amply rewarded when his dictionary was published in 1755 after eight years of ‘harmless drudgery’ and won Johnson kudos and an MA from Oxford.

But imagine the agony of a poet-scholar who spent many long years of massive labour in compiling what was till then the most comprehensive dictionary of Urdu and only two volumes could see the light of day and that, too, earned him the jealousy and unwarranted criticism of some of his peers. The lexicographer was Munshi Ameer Ahmed Meenai (1829-1900), an outstanding poet of Urdu and Persian, and the project he undertook was ‘Ameer-ul-Lughaat’.

In 1884, Nawab Kalb-i-Ali Khan of Rampur and Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall – an ICS who had held many high posts such as Chief Commissioner of Oudh and Lieutenant Governor of the NWFP – asked Ameer Meenai to compile a comprehensive Urdu dictionary on the lines of English dictionaries. In 1886, Ameer Meenai published ‘Namoona-i-Ameer-ul-Lughaat’ or a sample of his proposed Urdu dictionary. After getting a go-ahead, he published the first volume of the lughaat in 1891 and the second in 1892, consisting of over 300 pages each and the words beginning with Urdu letter ‘alif’.

His plan was to compile a dictionary that explained words and their different shades of meanings with illustrative quotations from well-known authors. Though he had compiled the entire dictionary, the publishing of the remaining volumes remained a dream due to financial constrains and his ill health. The Nawab had died and Sir A.C. Lyall had returned to England by then. The published volumes could not sell and Ameer Meenai was heavily indebted due to the huge expenses of running an office and the salaries of the supporting staff. Ameer remained constantly ill and the proverbial last straw was the outbreak of a massive fire in his Rampur house in 1889 that devoured rare reference books and Ameer’s own unpublished works. Ameer died the following year. Ameer intended to complete the dictionary in 28 volumes and, according to some scholars, had finished the compilation of eight volumes, though some researchers believe that all the volumes had been compiled and only some of the last volumes required the illustrative quotations.

According to the ‘Rampur Raza Library Journal’ (issue 3, p 223), the entire manuscript of ‘Ameer-ul-Lughaat’, consisting of 28 volumes, is preserved by the title ‘Farhang-i-Haamidya’ at Raza Library Rampur, qualifying it as Urdu’s most voluminous dictionary. (It, however, must be clarified that this claim needs revision as each volume of ‘Ameer-ul-Lughaat’ consists of about 300 pages or about 3,000 words and Urdu Lughat being published by Karachi’s Urdu Dictionary Board is definitely more comprehensive as each of its 21 published volumes consists of about 1,000 pages or 10,000 words.)

Israel Ahmed Meenai, Ameer Meenai’s grandson, along with other relics of his eminent grandfather, has the manuscript of the third volume of ‘Ameer-ul-Lughaat’ that he intends to publish now. But one cannot help saying that it is the moral duty of a famous institution like Raza Library Rampur to ensure the publication of the dictionary in its entirety lest this treasure should be squandered by the vicissitudes of time.

Prominent scholars and personalities like Sir Syed Ahmed Khan and Akber Ilahabadi had appreciated the publication of the first volume of Ameer-ul-Lughaat, but a feud marred it. Syed Ahmed Dehlvi accused Ameer Meenai of plagiarism. Although it is true that the first two volumes of Syed Ahmed Dehlvi’s ‘Farhang-i-Aasifiya’ (a four-volume encyclopaedic dictionary of Urdu) had appeared in 1888 and that he had been publishing its segments titled ‘Armaghan-i-Dehli’ since 1871 – much before Ameer-ul-Lughaat’s first volume was published – it is imperative for a lexicographer to take note of previously compiled dictionaries and include many -- almost all -- entries of the dictionaries compiled earlier.

Ameer tried to expand the dictionary’s scope and included many new words, idioms and phrases that previous lexicographers had left out. He also included the illustrative quotations for thousands of words and phrases that were never included in any dictionary before. ‘Ameer-ul-Lughaat’ discusses the origin of the words and their grammatical nature in a logical and research-based manner. This aspect, when compared with other dictionaries, makes Ameer’s work outstanding.

Ameer Meenai really worked hard to make his dictionary all-embracing and profited from the earlier works though he also critically evaluated and ignored many entries, which were in his opinion not worth publishing but were mentioned in the classical dictionaries of Urdu.

In other words, Syed Ahmed Dehlvi’s claim was based on misunderstanding or professional jealousy or, maybe, both.

Not only critical articles were written and published in Delhi’s ‘Akmal-ul-Akhbar’ against Ameer’s lughaat, Syed Ahmed Dehlvi in his prefaces to the first and fourth volumes of his dictionary sarcastically repeated the accusations.

What one finds worth mentioning though is the fact that Ameer tried to enlist the definitions of the words (along with different shades of meanings), the metaphors and similes of a particular word or phrase, regardless of their alphabetical order or need. This is especially true of the first volume.

Though this created a kind of resemblance with a thesaurus, a non-existent concept in Urdu till then, it was against the norms of lexicography and these entries can be termed, at best, non-lexical.

But, all in all, Ameer-ul-Lughaat is an enormous work and an important milestone in the history of Urdu lexicography. It avoided the errors of the earlier works like Farhang-i-Aasifiya and showed the way to many lexicographers who came after him. One wishes to see all its volumes published so that a dream may come true, albeit after over a century.

drraufparekh@yahoo.com