KARACHI, Jan 17: While the English language and literature need no introduction, Urdu is spoken of compassionately as a young language. The fact of the matter is that some Urdu words are older than the relics of Moenjodaro.

This was stated by the lexicographer, Shanul Haq Haqee, at the launching ceremony of The Oxford English-Urdu Dictionary on Friday.

Mr Haqee said that the Concise Oxford Dictionary, which had appeared in 1911, had been a national effort, involving a good deal of voluntary contribution. “Even some prisoners had contributed to it. The dictionary set the pattern which has been followed by others. We in Pakistan also kept it as a model.”

Introducing the audience to the dictionary, the OUP managing director, Ameena Saiyid, said that it had taken Mr Haqee 14 years to edit the The Oxford English-Urdu Dictionary which was the bilingual edition of The Concise Oxford Dictionary. “The Oxford English-Urdu Dictionary has translations of illustrative sentences which enable a learner of the English language to familiarize himself with current English usage. It also incorporates new technical words, such as database and spamming,” she explained.

Ms Saiyid said that The Oxford English-Urdu Dictionary was the only English-Urdu dictionary which used the International Phonetic Alphabet, an internationally recognized set of phonetic symbols.

She said that Mr Haqee had a lifelong association with lexicography. “He has a gift of coining terms for such English expressions for which there are no Urdu equivalents. For instance, he has come up with an expression, Jahan-i-Kochak, for the English word microcosm.”

Dr Aslam Farrukhi said that in a weak moment, he had agreed to review the manuscript of The Oxford English-Urdu Dictionary. “Little did I know then that it would take me three years to finish the job. The otherwise soft-spoken Ibrahim Saad, OUP managing director, turned out to be unyielding when it came to extracting work from me,” he recalled.

He said that the dictionary compiled by Maulvi Abdul Haq, first published in 1937, had been one of the best-selling dictionaries of its time. “The next attempt was made by Muqtadra Quami Zaban in 1992. The Oxford English-Urdu Dictionary is an addition to these dictionaries, for it has more words and more explanatory notes.”

He said that considering that the English language was increasingly making hostile inroads into the Urdu language, in 20-30 years an English-Urdu dictionary would not be needed.

Comparing Mr Haqee’s stay in the West for 14 years during which he worked on the dictionary to the 14-year-long exile of Ramchander Ji, Dr Farman Fatehpuri said that lexicography was a difficult job. “It is wrong to assume that the Urdu language is threatened with extinction because it has tremendous assimilative power. The Urdu language has been able to acquire a large number of words over the years.”

Mushtaq Ahmed Yusufi said that Mr Haqee was a very meticulous researcher and painstaking scholar. He recalled that at a function in Sept 1992 he had pronounced Min-o-An as Man-o-An while reading out a piece. “Knowing that Mr Haqee would be at the function, I had checked Nur-ul-Lughat according to which Man-o-An is permissible. At the end of the function, Mr Haqee came to me and told me that I had mispronounced the word. When I drew his attention to Nur-ul-Lughat, he clammed up and went away. When I reached home, I found that, armed with heft volumes of many dictionaries, Mr Haqee had been waiting for me in the drawing room. He then proved that the correct pronunciation of the word is Min-o-An. This incident serves to prove that Mr Haqee is a perfectionist.”