An Analytical Review of Sindhi-Urdu Dictionaries (1947-2022)

Abstract

1947 saw the emergence of Pakistan as a new nation. Urdu was subsequently designated as the country's official language, but other languages of its constituent entities, including Sindhi, Punjabi, Balochi, Pashto, and Bengali, were not projected as national languages. People of all the provinces of newly established country came into direct interaction with Urdu language. The government and linguists recognised the need to create and compile bilingual dictionaries with all regional languages in this context. In Sindh province, Sindhi was a widely spoken language which had the status of official language during British Period. Before the conquest of Sindh by Great Birtain, Sindh was under the Kalhora and then Talpur tribes. During that period, Urdu was also familiar to Sindhi people. Poets of Sindh, like Roohal Faqeer, Syed Sabit Ali Shah, Sachal Sarmast, Khalifo Nabi Bakhsh Laghari, Qadir Bakhsh Bedil, Deewan Soorat Singh, Hamal Khan Laghari, Muhammad Hussain Bekus, Ghulam Muhammad Shah Gada, Syed Misri Shah, Mir Abdul Hussain Sangi, Mirza Qalich Baig, Mir Ali Nawaz Khan Talpur and Hidayat Ali Najfi Tarik were among the famous poets who used Urdu as second language to express their thoughts and feelings. It was because many words from Arabic, Persian, Sanskrit, Hindi and Turkish languages were part of Sindhi language which were also used in Urdu language frequently, hence, the lexical similarities existed in both languages to the considerable extent.

In this given perspective, bilingual dictionaries of Urdu-Sindhi and Sindhi-Urdu languages were compiled and edited so as to bring the speakers of both the languages closer together. The first Urdu-Sindhi dictionary, titled “Naeen Urdu-Sindhi Lughaat” was published in 1950 and the first “Sindhi-Urdu dictionary” was printed in 1959 and thus two-way process to bring both languages closer to each other was started.

I have examined and provided a critical review of Sindhi-Urdu dictionaries published by 2022 in this article. During my critical examination, I have focused on the making of dictionaries with particular emphasis on presentation of meanings, pronunciations and grammatical information have been studied. This study use qualitative methodology and content analysis as its research instrument. This kind of research work is highly original in Sindhi language. This study will not only help improvise already published dictionaries but also inspire to find out and adopt new ways and methods for preparing qualitative bilingual dictionaries.