Shahid Hameed hands in dictionary draft
Dictionary includes English words and phrases used only in Pakistan and India.
LAHORE:
“I did not favour a particular dictionary during my research. I studied several including some slang dictionaries lest I miss out some frequently used words,” translator Shahid Hameed said.
He was talking to The Express Tribune about his Urdu to English dictionary of which, he said, the final draft had been completed and handed over to the publisher.
Hameed said it had taken him 10 years to compile the 2,000-page volume. He said he had consulted some 33 reference books including dictionaries. He said that it had benefitted from a revision by lexicographer and translator Muhammad Saleemur Rehman.
He said this dictionary contained more words and idioms than any earlier Urdu-to-English dictionary. Every important word and idiom has been elaborated in english, he added.
“It also contains English words and phrases used only in Pakistan and India such as ‘marriage hall’, ‘shoulder promotion’ and ‘sixer’.”
Hameed’s acclaimed works include translations of Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace, Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov, Ernest Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea, Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, Jostein Gaarder’s Sophie’s World and Edward W Said’s The Question of Palestine.
Published in The Express Tribune, September 17th, 2011.
“I did not favour a particular dictionary during my research. I studied several including some slang dictionaries lest I miss out some frequently used words,” translator Shahid Hameed said.
He was talking to The Express Tribune about his Urdu to English dictionary of which, he said, the final draft had been completed and handed over to the publisher.
Hameed said it had taken him 10 years to compile the 2,000-page volume. He said he had consulted some 33 reference books including dictionaries. He said that it had benefitted from a revision by lexicographer and translator Muhammad Saleemur Rehman.
He said this dictionary contained more words and idioms than any earlier Urdu-to-English dictionary. Every important word and idiom has been elaborated in english, he added.
“It also contains English words and phrases used only in Pakistan and India such as ‘marriage hall’, ‘shoulder promotion’ and ‘sixer’.”
Hameed’s acclaimed works include translations of Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace, Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov, Ernest Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea, Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, Jostein Gaarder’s Sophie’s World and Edward W Said’s The Question of Palestine.
Published in The Express Tribune, September 17th, 2011.