KARACHI: A highly critical French work on the history of Urdu has been published for the first time in the Urdu language by the Pakistan Study Centre of Karachi University (KU), it emerged on Monday.

Titled Tareekh Adabiat-i-Urdu, the book was researched by Orientalist scholar Garcin De Tassy and initially published in the French language in 1870-71 in three editions.

The historical work couldn’t be translated in any other language for more than a century till Ms Liliane Sixtine Nazroo, a French student of KU, took the initiative under the guidance of the late Prof Abul Lais Siddiqui, heading the university’s Urdu department at that time, and translated the work for her PhD thesis in 1961.

Unfortunately, her work couldn’t get published.

After more than five decades, the Urdu version has now been edited by critic and scholar Prof Moinuddin Aqeel, also the former chairperson of the Urdu department of KU and Islamabad’s International Islamic University. “The work was of immense significance considering the fact that it’s a record of the Urdu language’s history from 1839 till 1871. The earlier record of the history is from 1912,” Dr Aqeel said.

While tracing the history of Urdu, the 935-page book also throws light on the literary and research services of Garcin De Tassy.

Published in Dawn, May 26th, 2015

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