JOHN Shakespear (1774-1858) — not William Shakespeare (1564-1616), mind you — was among the British lexicographers and orientalists who influenced the next generations of lexicographers of Urdu.
In fact John Shakespear’s A Dictionary, Hindustani and English was a prototype of Urdu-English dictionaries that British scholars were to compile later on and which, in turn, served as a preliminary model for the latter-day Urdu-Urdu dictionaries. As put by Waris Sirhindi, John Shakespear’s dictionary is the “mother” of all latter-day Urdu dictionaries and all the succeeding lexicographers of Urdu, be it John T. Platts or S.W. Fallon, Syed Ahmed Dehlvi or Noor-ul-Hasan Nayyar, are indebted to John Shakespear.
Despite the title, it is an Urdu-English dictionary. In those days western scholars usually used the word ‘Hindustani’ for Urdu, and sometimes for Hindi as well, but the dictionary enlists all the entries in Urdu script and in Urdu’s alphabetical order. Only those Urdu words are given in Devanagari script that have their origin in Sanskrit or Prakrit, or Hindi, as some would prefer.
The first edition of John Shakespear’s Urdu-English dictionary was published in 1817 from London. But, initially, he had based it on two works: A Dictionary, Hindoostanee and English, compiled by Captain Joseph Taylor in 1805 for his personal use, and the updated, revised and enlarged version of Taylor’s work. Dr William Hunter — who died at Java in 1812 — had, with the help of faculty members of Fort William College, revised Taylor’s work. It was published from Calcutta in 1808. According to Moulvi Abul Haq, Hunter’s work was ranked among good ones in those days.
The first edition of Shakespear’s dictionary was just a revised version of Hunter’s work but he kept on improving upon it and the subsequent editions appeared in 1820, 1834 and 1849. The third edition appeared from London in 1834 with the words ‘much enlarged’ printed on the inner title. It had newly-added index that mentioned the English words, with page numbers, used in the dictionary either in explaining Urdu words or as synonyms. It was the beginning of a bidirectional Urdu-English and English-Urdu dictionary that Shakespear’s fourth edition (1849) turned out to be. The addition of English-Urdu dictionary and Urdu words originating from Deccan made the fourth edition a much appreciated work. The Urdu-English portion showed pronunciation of Urdu words in Roman as well as in Urdu script. Most of the words borrowed from Sanskrit/Prakrit were written in Devanagari script as well. Moulvi Abdul Haq says it was the most voluminous and comprehensive of such works at that time.
John Shakespear’s dictionary has some features that have been commended by scholars. Waris Sirhindi in his review of Shakespear’s dictionary, published by National Language Authority in 1987, has listed a number of positive aspects. For instance, says Sirhindi, the origins of words, especially the ones borrowed by Urdu from Persian and Arabic, have been traced with care and are, mostly, correctly mentioned, unlike Fallon, who had stumbled over the origin of many Persian and Arabic words. Some proper nouns (such as Ibn-i-Ziyad and Hatim Tai) have been included, which is helpful for translators. Different shades of meanings enable the reader to distinguish the subtle differences words may convey.
On the other hand, writes Sirhindi, some subentries, such as idioms and compounds, have not been given in proper alphabetical order and the reader at times has to struggle to find an entry as it may not be enlisted under the main entry. But aside from such lapses, it is a useful work that may come in handy on many occasions when modern dictionaries are found to lack a certain piece of information. According to Dictionary of National Biography and Dictionary of Indian Biography (by C. E. Buckland), John Shakespear was born at Lount, near Ashby, Leicestershire, in August 1774. His father was a small farmer. Shakespear was educated at a parish school and afterwards at a school run by a clergyman who introduced him to Lord Frances Rawdon-Hastings. He sent Shakespear to London to learn Arabic. Shakespear was appointed the oriental professor at Royal Military College, Marlow, circa 1805. East India Company opened a military college for cadets at Addiscombe in 1805 and he was appointed there as professor of ‘Hindustani’ (read: Urdu) in 1807. Here he wrote a book on Urdu grammar, his dictionary and some textbooks.
In 1829, John Shakespear retired from the services of East India Company. His other works include A Grammar of the Hindustani Language (1813, sixth edition 1855), Muntakhabat-i-Hindi: Selection in Hindustani (1818, third edition 1834), Introduction to Hindustani Language (1845) and some philological papers.
John Shakespear died on June 10, 1858, but his dictionary is still alive even 200 years after its compilation. It has been reprinted in Pakistan by Sang-i-Meel, Lahore, under the title A Dictionary: Urdu-English and English-Urdu.
Published in Dawn, June 7th, 2021
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