Kashmiri-English Dictionary

In comparison to other modern Indian languages, lexicographical works on Kashmiri commenced very late. No lexicographical works were written before the middle of 19th century. Lexicographical works on Kashmiri fall under different categories: vocabularies, glossaries and dictionaries. A number of attempts have been made by native speakers of Kashmiri to compile dictionaries in Persian, Arabic and Sanskrit towards the middles of the 19th century. It is believed that Sonti Pandit compiled a Kashmiri-Persian dictionary in 1859. This dictionary remained unpublished and is not available now. Pandit Ishvara Kaul (d. 1893) made a first serious attempt to prepare a Kashmiri-Sanskrit dictionary, But could not complete it before his death. Grierson (1916-1932) compiled A dictionary of Kashmiri Language partly from materials left by Late Pandit Ishvara Kaul. He was assisted by Mahamohapadhyaya Mukundram Shastri. This dictionary was published by the Royal Asiatic Study of Bengal in four parts. This is first comprehensive Kashmiri-English dictionary available. Most of the lexical items are explained in Sanskrit as well. The lexical entries are given in Roman script with transliteration in Devanagari. It explains idioms and phrases in detail. It makes use of Kashmiri texts and gives quits useful references of the same wherever necessary. Grierson has used English alphabetic order for this dictionary with additions and modifications wherever necessary to suit the sound system of Kashmiri. Keeping in view the dearth of dictionaries related to the Kashmiri language, the present Kashmiri-English dictionary by Jawahir Lal Tickoo is a very important step forward in this direction. It has more than15,000 rently in use. Main entries are in the Perso-Arabic script of Kashmiri with pronunciation in Roman and Devanagari transcriptions, grammatical categories and lexical meanings. The most common meanings are given in the beginning followed by other meanings. It lists Kashmiri language and literature, translators, and general users will find this dictionary useful.