a practical hindi-english dictionary preface.pdf

7/29/2019 A Practical Hindi-English Dictionary Preface.pdf

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Preface (to the Second Edition)The Editors have been encouraged by the spontaneous and hearty appreciationof their effort by users of the dictionary in general and by friends in particular.

The second edition is a much more improved, comprehensive and enlargedversion of the first--keeping the basic framework in tact. On valuablesuggestions from friends in India, and esp. from friends teaching Hindi inforeign Universities, we have added some new categories of words in thedictionary and hope they will further facilitate the efforts of foreign friendstrying to learn Hindi in their own universities and institutions. The newadditions may be categorized as under :

1. Some mythological names which symbolise, or are characteristic of, certaintraits of human personality or have given birth to idioms, sayings and proverbs

current amongst Hindi-speakers (as , , , etc.). Thisnomenclature has enriched the language through such potential expressionsand should, therefore, appropriately find a place in a general dictionary such asthis.

2. Oblique forms of verbs, which do not yield to ready comprehension of the

learner of Hindi, have also been incorporated in the dictionary (as , ,

, etc.). Suggestions for the inclusion [page iv] of such forms had come fromHindi teachers of foreign university departments.

3. Some technical terms which have gained passage into contemporary writing.

4. Some hitherto unknown words of dialects that have been elevated to theposition of recognised usages through the pen of significant writers.

Besides these categories, the dictionary has also been enlarged (and enriched)by the inclusion of numerous Hindi sayings, proverbs and idioms which wouldbe difficult to find even in a Hindi-Hindi Dictionary. This dictionary is richerfrom this point of view than even the most voluminous of Hindi-Hindi

dictionaries.We have made a slight change in our system of phonetic pronunciation adoptedin the first edition. In giving the phonetic pronunciations we had post-fixed an

'a' to consonant-clusters or to semivowels (, ). This has now been omitted

since the words that sound as ending in () are not actually so. Whatwe hear is just plosion.

We are thankful to our friend Dr. R. K. Kohli for reading through the preface ofthe dictionary and suggesting improvements therein as also for some of hissuggestions in general. Mention may also be made of Madhukar Chaturvedi,

Km. Mukul and Rajiv Tiwari for their keen interest in, and active cooperation


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towards, the preparation of the press copy of the second Edition of thedictionary.

Mahendra ChaturvediBhola Nath Tiwari

Dipawali, 1974.

[page v]

Editorial Preface(to the First Edition)

Those who are conversant with the pace and process of growth of referenceworks and lexicographical literature [part of the literature of knowledge] inHindi will, no doubt, agree that there has been an unusual spurt of suchliterature in the post-Independence era. Still, measured by modern standards,there is an apalling dearth of literature dwelling on various linguistic aspects ofHindi and representing profound linguistic studies--and there is no room for

controversy on this point, too. The lexicographical art in Hindi is in its primalstages and Hindi dictionaries which can match the high standards of Webster'sInternational Dictionary or Shorter Oxford Dictionary, or bilingual dictionariesavailable in European languages, are yet a long way off. Dictionaries, lexiconsand glossaries form a very valuable part of the literature of knowledge andtheir importance in any linguistic study is self-evident. It is with a deep sense ofthe obligation to contribute their mite to the enrichment of this rather poor field,and with full consciousness of the hazards involved, that the Editors undertookto compile a dictionary such as the present one. We have absolutely nopretensions to a pioneering work and should our endeavour prove to be of

some help to the Hindi learner, the translator, and the user in general, we shallconsider our efforts amply rewarded.

[page vi]

Dictionaries form a wide and varied genre of the literature of knowledge--oneof the main categories being comprised of bilingual dictionaries. Bilingualdictionaries represent an effort to convey the meanings and significance ofwords, typical usages, idioms and proverbs of one language through themedium of another--which may or may not be blessed with matching verve andrichness. The tradition of bilingual dictionaries can be traced back to fairlyancient times in world literature. India, too, is not without its own tradition of

bilingual dictionaries although Indian langauges, today, cannot claim to be asadvanced or rich as some other languages of the world, such as English, French,German and Russian. And in this respect what is true of Indian languages ingeneral is also true of Hindi.

The first bilingual dictionary in Hindi is the Kha:liq Ba:ri: which lists Persian(and sometimes Arabic and Turkish) equivalents of Hindi words and phrases.We can enumerate about half-a-dozen more, such as 'Lugatae Hindi', 'Gara:ybul

luga:t', 'Alla:huda:i:, in this tradition. Obviously, they reflect genuine efforts onthe part of immigrating Muslims to acquire fluency in the Hindi language andto understand it better. The same phenomenon was repeated when the

Europeans achieved sway over the northern parts of the country and felt theimperative need to have a workable knowledge of Hindi. Hindi-English


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Dictionaries numbering a score and a half were compiled to fulfil this need ofthe times. The earliest in the series was John Fergusan's 'A Dictionary ofHindustani language' which was published in London in 1773 A. D. Amongothers 'A Dictionary : Hindustanee and English, Calcutta, 1808 (Taylor)', 'ADictionary : Hindustani and English, London, 1817 (Shakespeare)', 'A

Dictionary : Hindustani and English, London, 1848 (Duncan Forbes)' and 'ADictionary of Urdu, Classical Hindi and English, London, 1884 (Platts)' deservespecial mention. The last mentioned work is, undoubtedly, the best of thewhole lot.

The second quarter of the present century saw another dictionary compiled byShri R. C. Pathak (Bhargava's Standard Illustrated Dictionary of the Hindilanguage, Banares, 1946) which, although based essentially on Platts, representsa linguistic anachronism and betrays complete ignorance of the art oflexicography. It abounds, on the one hand, in words and meanings which neverformed an essential part of standard Hindi vocabulary and ignores, on theother, numerous words and meanings that have very much been an asset to,and form an integral part of, the language. The very fact that this dictionary hasgone into several editions reflects the poor state of our lexicographicalequipment in the field.

In 1966, the Central Hindi Directorate of the Govt. of India, Ministry ofEducation, brought out a small-sized 'Hindi-English Dictionary [page vii] ofCommon Words', comprising about five thousand entries, at the instance ofthen Prime Minister, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru. This was rather a meagre tributeto the wishes of a great and mighty man who always believed in doing things

'in a big way'. It, however, reflected an approach that was much more scientificand precision-based. With all its limitations in terms of size and selection ofentries, it was a worthwhile contribution to this rather sterile field.

In fact, none of the dictionaries mentioned above incorporates all, or nearly all,the active vocabulary of modern Hindi or adopts comparatively newerlexicographical techniques. The present work is an humble effort to fulfil thetwin objectives.

The main characteristics of the dictionary may be summed up as follows :

(i) It comprises almost the whole active vocabulary of modern Hindi includingwords of common or literary usages as also commonly prevalent technical and

semi-technical terms.(ii) An effort has been made herein to incorporate almost all current idioms,proverbs and peculiar usages of Hindi.

(iii) Each main entry is followed by its actual pronunciation.

(iv) While fixing the English equivalents for Hindi words, emphasis has notbeen laid on conglomerating all, even remotely possible, words having far-fetched affinity of meaning, but on the selection of semantically precise andexact equivalents as far as possible. It is the semantic proximity, in other words,that has mattered in the selection of words and not the numerical strength of

the equivalents. In fact, we have tried to restrict the number of equivalents asfar as possible.


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It may, in short, be stated that an over riding emphasis on practical aspect oflinguistic usages forms the keystone of its edifice. It is this factor that is soughtto be reflected in the title of the dictionary viz. 'A Practical Hindi-EnglishDictionary'. We seek here to discuss, in brief, the main problems ofcomplication in respect of this dictionary.

Word Entries

Selection of the entries represents one of the first, and fairly ticklish, problemsof complication. It depends, most of all, on the proposed user of the dictionary--as envisaged by the compiler(s). We have focussed our attention essentially onthose who are trying to learn conversational or literary Hindi, on the generaluser of the language and the translator of Hindi works and texts. We have notbeen very liberal in the inclusion of technical terms which form a very smallpercentage of the total entries. In fact we have, by and large, selected suchwords as verge on the [page viii] border-line and may safely be termed as semi-technical. There is ample room for difference of opinion over the selection (orrejection) of main as well as sub-entries in a dictionary of this type and personal

judgement, undoubtedly, plays a significant role in arriving at a decision inrespect of all controversial entries. We have, however, taken care to ensure thatwords, phrases, idioms and proverbs of our active vocabulary are not left out.Apart from entries that are an aid to the comprehension of subsequent wordsand phrases thereunder, currency forms one of the important criteria forselection of words as main entries--though it is difficult to decide what wordsare more, and what others less, current without an element of subjectivity.

We have followed six different techniques of inscribing a word, phrase, idiom

or proverb by way of a sub-entry under a main entry :--1. They are in some cases written in full--especially, where the initial head-wordhas undergone a formal variation, inflexional or otherwise, in the sub-entry; e.g.

'' under '', ' ' under '', ' ' under

'' and so on.

2. Some of the sub-entries are preceded by a tilde (~) which means that theactual words etc. are formed by prefixing the main entry to it and that it forms

an organic whole, e.g. '~' under the head-word '' actually stands for

'' or '~' under '' is actually to be read as ''.

3. Some others are preceded by a dash, instead of a tilde, which signifies thatthe main entry and the sub-entry combine to form the whole expression and yet

they are written separately, e.g., '--' under the main entry '' would denote

the complete expression as ' '; '--' under '' means ' ' and '--

' under '' should be read as ' '.

4. In some cases, the reader will find a hyphen preceding a sub-entry and thatshould be taken to mean that the two, i.e. the main and the sub-entries form acompound and are joined together by a hyphen in usual usage. For example, '-


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' under the main entry '' should be read as ' ', '-' under

'' should be read as '-'.

5. A slanting near-vertical line (/) has been interposed in between the body of aword in certain cases which signifies that the subsequent entries are formed byprefixing the earlier portion of the word so divided. For example, we have a

sub-entry as, '~' under ' /' which means that the actual sub-entry

is .

6. A dot () preceding a sub-entry means that the latter subentry is formed byprefixing the whole of the sub-entry immediately before it. Thus, a dot followed

by (viz. [page ix] ) under '' after --is tantamount to '-' or under '/' and after the sub-entry '~' (i e. ), -would denotethat the word under study is '-'.

The main entries are sometimes more than one representing prevalentvariations of a word. They are grouped together alphabetically in full as one

main entry (as , ), or shown within bracket if the difference is

confined to just one letter or so as (), which denotes both the

variations, viz. , . The latter difference has also been denoted by

a slanting near-vertical line as in /,~(which denotes two entries--,).

A slanting near-vertical line interposed in between various words denotesalternatives. It just means that the words on either side of the line arealternatives and the two may be used interchangeably. For example,

~/under '' means '' or '' both, ~/under /,is tantamount to '' and '' both. The same thing holds in respect of

idioms. --/under '' denote two sub-entries, viz. or , conveying identical meaning.Pronunciation

The general belief amongst people is that there is exact conformity between the

spoken and written forms of words in Hindi and that words are written exactlyas they are spoken and spoken precisely as they are written. The truth is,

however, remarkably different. '' for example is pronounced as '',

'' as '?', '' as '' and so on. It is because of this gulfbetween the spellings and pronunciations that we have tried to indicate theactual pronunciations of all the main entries. Some of the earlier Hindi-Englishdictionaries do give pronunciations, in Roman alphabet, of the words written inDevna:gri: but these are not actual pronunciations--they are more oftransliterations of the written forms. In fact, the present dictionary is the first

wherein an effort has been made to transcribe the actual pronunciations and,therefore, errors--both of omission and commission--cannot be ruled out. It


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would not be out of place here to recount some of the difficulties encounteredin the matter of pronunciation.

1. Essentialy, the written forms can only indicate the pronunciation. It is prettydifficult to reduce to exact written form the actual pronunciation of any word ofany language whatsoever. Even if the effort is made, the pronunciations wouldneed fairly advanced technical skill to be correctly comprehended because of avariety of diacritical marks and it may not be possible for all the users of thedictionary to benefit from the [page x] additional editorial effort.

2. The editors had originally planned to make the pronunciations as accurate aspossible and yet to avoid being too technical but the limitations of Hinditypography proved too much to surmount. What was possible had, therefore,to be abandoned because of the handicaps and limitations of the press. Andwhat is now before the reader is some sort of an enforced compromise.

3. Hindi, with its variations, is the spoken language of a fairly large region of

the Indian Union and we find different pronunciations in different areas of thisregion. Not only this, the Hindi pronunciation of a Sanskrit-knowing Hindi-speaking man of the same area differs from that of one who knows English andUrdu while one who knows neither Sanskrit nor English and Urdu has his ownpeculiar style of pronunciation. Which one of these numerous variations is to betaken as the standard, and adopted ? This poses a tough problem. This prefaceis not the appropriate place to discuss the problem in detail, knotty as it is.Suffice it to say that we have accepted the pronunciation of an educated originalresident of Delhi as our norm. We have, in some exceptional cases, given twovariations of pronunciation when we thought it to be absolutely essential.

Perhaps we thought it better to err on the right side--as the proverb goes. Andyet, we have no hesitation in confessing that our notion of standard form hasstill been subjective. Probably there is no other way. Objectively is impossible toachieve in the field without a thorough survey on a wide scale.

[4.] The vowel is seldom pronounced at the end of a word and in some cases, at

the end of a syllable. Thus, '' is pronounced as '' and '' as

'?'. We have constantly kept the fact in view while transcribing thepronunciations. But when preceded by a compound consonant some people(esp. Sanskrit knowing people) do pronounce it, fully or partly. That is why we

have retained the '' in such cases. In fact, this post-compound consonantal ''has not altogether disappeared in pronunciation and that is why we thought itprudent to retain it--again, perhaps, with a view to err on the right side, if at all.

5. '' is variously pronuounced as , , and by Hindi-speaking peopledepending on the extent of their familiarity with, and fascination for, theSanskritic style of pronunciation but the most popularly current amongst them

is '', which we have uniformly adopted.

[page xi]

6. , and the Visargas (:) had typical pronuciations in Sanskrit and thoughthey form an integral part of the written form of the Hindi language yet, in


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actual practice, they are pronounced as , and and have, therefore, beenrendered as such.

7. Although we have only one '' as far as the written form is concerned, inactual pronunciation it is labio dental (v) in some cases and bilabial (w) inothers. This difference is not very clear in some words, yet we have kept it inview as far as possible.

8. and are presently pronounced in three different ways in the Hindiregion. Broadly speaking, those adopting the Sanskrit tradition pronounce them

as '' and '' respectively, those belonging to the eastern parts and some

western tract of the region pronounce them as and while in the westernparts they are generally retained as base vowels and . (There are, of course,exceptions when they are pronounced as ''and ''). These two vowels arethus pronounced as diphthongs as well as monophthongs. We have indicated

them by the symbols ai and au which should be read as base vowels '' and ''

(more 'open' in comparison with '' and ''). We could not work out a moreapproximate symbol because of typographical shortcomings and handicaps. Aneffort at closest possible approximation has, however, been made in all cases.

9. , , , , and have been represented by the symbols o, q, , g, z andf, respectively, in words where they are so pronounced by the educated class inthe Hindi region. In cases where they have been otherwise moulded into the

pattern of Hindi phonetic system, they have accordingly been represented bythe symbols a:, k, kh, g, j, and ph, in pronunciation.

10. A post-vowel colon (:) represents a long vowel, a horizontal line markoverhead signifies its nasalization. Considered in minutest details, eachphoneme has numerous allophones but it is only the major ones that have beengiven in the pronunciations.

Other important points regarding the system adopted herein, for rendering thepronunciations, will become self-evident from the following charts :--

Vowels

Front mid backClose i:, i u:, u

Half-close e o

Half-open ai au

open a:

[page xii]

Consonants

bilabiallabio-dental


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dentalalveolarprepalatalretroflexpalatal

soft-palataluvularglottalstopp, ph, b, bh

t, th, d, dh

, ,

,

k, kh, g, ghq

affricate

ch, chh, j, jh

nasalm

n

flapped

,


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rolled

r

lateral

l

fricative

f, v

s, z

sh

, g

hsemi-vowelw

y

[page xiii]

KEY TO PRONUNCIATIONa


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a:

:

rii

i:

:

u


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u:

:

e

ai

o

au


12/17

kkhgghchchhjjh

n


13/17

tthddhnp phbbhm

yrlv/w

shshs


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h

qg

z f

[page xiv]

[A colon (:) following a short vowel denotes its long form. has been used to

denote a rounded a: (as in ()). It is also rather close as compared with a:.A horizontal line mark over the body of a vowel-symbol represents its

nasalized form :-- (), : (), (), : (), (), : (), (), (), (),

( ).]Grammar

As far as grammatical indications are concerned, we have something to sayonly in respect of the gender. There is a large number of words that are used in

the feminine gender in one region and in the masculine in another. The reverseis also true in an equally large number of cases. There is yet another category of


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words which are used sometimes in one gender and sometimes in the other.This anarchy extends to such an incredible limit that the same person uses aword in feminine gender in one context and in masculine in another. Thenumerous Hindi Dictionaries have only helped in perpetuating this confusion--in fact, they have contributed to make it more confounded. In all such

controversial cases, we have adopted the genders that are prevalent in thewestern Hindi region and have been accepted as standard in grammaticalworks. The indication nm, nfstands for words that are freely used in both thegenders but such cases are few, in our opinion.

Meanings

Fixation of meanings and appropriate equivalents forms the most difficultaspect of lexicographical attainments. Precise meanings and exact equivalentsare much more elusive than they appear to be to a layman. The whole effort is,in fact, an exercise in approximation and the closer this approximation, themore successful the effort. Schopenhauer, in his typical philosophical manner,has rightly pointed towards the fact that the so-called synonyms in any twolanguages could at best be represented by two 'overlapping circles'. Nobodyunderstands the genuineness of this remarkable expression better than apractical lexicographer. But, then, bilingual and multilingual dictionaries havebeen, and are being, compiled and scholars have continued to fondly indulge inthis exercise in approximation. It is with the object of achieving the closestapproximation between a word and its equivalent(s) and to make it (or them)distinctly intelligible that we have kept certain things in view :--

1. We have, as far as possible, adopted a strictly practical approach and have

given only such meanings of words as are current and prevalent. We havegenerally discarded obsolescent and obsolete meanings.

[page xv]

2. An effort has been made to give the closest English equivalents for thevarious Hindi entries. We have tried to steer clear of the general tendency tocollect as large a number of equivalents as possible--unscientific as it is.

3. When the equivalents have more or less the same or proximal nuances, they areseparated by a comma. But if the meanings or the shades of these meanings differsubstantially, semi-colon has been used to indicate the fact of this difference. Themeanings could perhaps be numbered but that would have consumed plenty ofspace. The use of a semi-colon has perhaps served the purpose equally well.

4. The articles 'a', 'an' and 'the' have been appropriately prefixed to the first ofthe nominal meanings only.

5. A slanting near-vertical line denotes equivalents and/or interchangeability ofthe meanings.

The problem of finding equivalents in a bilingual dictionary becomes muchmore insurmountable when the cultural gap between the languages in questionis wide, as in the present case. On numerous occasions, we have been facedwith the predicament of failing to find an equally forceful and pithy equivalentfor a simple but tricky Hindi word. Such cases may well be illustrative of the


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limitations of our linguistic attainments in the target language--a language withwhich neither of us grew in our early childhood.

With the successful (?) culmination of this rather unending task of dictionary-making in sight, we would like to express our gratitude to Shri. K. L. Malik (andsons, especially his enthusiastic son Shri Surendra Malik) of M/s NationalPublishing House for readily agreeing to take up the project and theirsubsequent remarkable success in ever-concealing their exasperation andrestlessness over the unforeseen delay in execution of the project under verysuave and soft-spoken reminders and exhortations. But for Shri Malik's cooland composed manners, it would have become a scare for both of us. We arealso very much indebted to Shri Shyam Kumar, the printer of the dictionary,whose active ways and 'voiced' personality always kept both the Editors, andperhaps also the Publisher, on the alert--fully equipped with plausible excusesfor not sending the press-matter in time. We would also like to thank Shri S. P.Bajaj for his ever-readiness to do the utmost within the shortest possible time onthe typing front.

Among others, we would like to make a special mention of Shri LakshmanChaturvedi for his timely and valuable literary assistance, and of KumariShashi Prabha and Jyotsna for their untiring efforts towards [page xvi] thespeedy preparation of the press copy. We would not observe the formality ofexpressing gratitude for their contribution because that would amount todevaluing their affectionate feelings and would sound as odd as thanking ourownselves.

And lastly, we would like to heartily thank our numerous friends, who, by their

persistent enquiries regarding the delay in publication of the dictionary, madeus all the more conscious of the urgency of our task and indirectly helped in theexpeditious completion of the project.

[unnumbered page]

ABBREVIATIONS

a = adjective

adv = adverb

esp = especially

fig = figurative (meaning)

ind = indeclinable

int = interjection

lit = literal (meaning)

nf= noun feminine

nm = noun masculine

post = post position

pro = pronoun

v = verb

f= feminine

m = masculine

pl = plural


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sing = singular

arch = archaic

a practical hindi-english dictionary preface.pdf

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