Urdu Lughat 22-volume publication
Publication of 22-volume Urdu Lughat celebrated
Karachi, July 19: The compilation, publication and merits of the 22-volume Urdu
Lughat were celebrated at a ceremony organised by Unikarians International at
Karachi University's arts auditorium on Saturday. It was a well-attended
programme presided over by KU Pro Vice-Chancellor Shahana Urooj Kazmi. Chief
editor of the Urdu Dictionary Board and poetess Fahmida Riaz was the chief
guest. Azhar Abbas Hashmi conducted the event in an eloquent manner and
his talk was replete with anecdotes from his university days and the things that
led to the making of Unikarians, an association of former students of Karachi
University. He recalled that when after a painstaking effort spanning 70 years
the Oxford English Dictionary was completed and published, the then British
prime minister Stanley Baldwin lauded the effort in parliament. Mr Hashmi
lamented that no such praise was showered on members of the Urdu Dictionary
Board, past or present, which is why Unikarians thought it appropriate to
arrange a function in their honour. In this regard he particularly acknowledged
the endeavours of two members of the association, Abul Hasanat and M. Iqbal
Khan. Unikarians president M. Iqbal Khan was the first speaker of the
day. He said it was a moment of pride and joy that after 52 years of hard work
and meticulous research the Lughat was finally out. He also recalled the
incident in which a British prime minister had appreciated the publication of a
dictionary in parliament with a standing ovation. He remarked that perhaps
Pakistani rulers had other important things to do. He commended the efforts of
all those who made the event possible, and of those who had come up with a book,
a compilation of essays on the Urdu Lughat. Prof Malahat Kaleem Sherwani
gave a presentation on Urdu's universality. She traced the history of languages
and said that it's through natural (qudrati) and forced (jabri) ways that
languages usually evolved. She said four periods were significant in the study
and progress of languages: (1) prehistoric (2) when people started to get
divided into groups and tribes (3) the age when means of communications began to
take root (4) the current period of information technology etc. She argued that
a language was deemed universal if it had a vast diction (vocabulary); it had
its own grammar; and had its own lexicon. Urdu had all of it, she said.
Former Unikarians president Syed Safwanullah said societies that cared
for their language(s) were bound to prosper, for conscientious nations admired
those who put together words (dictionaries). He said governments in Pakistan had
never kept the Urdu Dictionary Board on their list of priorities, with the
result that it had always been plagued with many a problem. After Mr
Safwanullah's speech a commemorative plaque on which names of some distinguished
officials of the board were written was presented to the pro vice-chancellor.
Then the book in which essays on the Urdu Lughat are compiled was presented to
some guests who in one way or another had contributed to the 22-volume
dictionary.Fahmida Riaz began her speech by telling the discerning audience that
the marked feature of the 22-volume Lughat was that it had been prepared using
philological principles, and the role model for it was the Greater Oxford
Dictionary. She talked about the thorough research work that had gone into it
and commented that a Lughat indicated the evolution of a whole civilisation. She
talked about those who had helped the cause of the Urdu Dictionary Board
starting from Maulvi Abdul Haq to Liaqat Ali Asim and Farhat Fatima, and also
mentioned with gratitude Daily Dawn's contribution to it. She informed the
audience how certain people wanted to merge the board with some other
organisation and how she with the help of some like-minded individuals resisted
it. Ms Riaz said she told the cabinet that in 1986 it was decided to
make the board ineffectual, so if they did it now it'd be attributed to the
current government. She said the board vanished from government files in 1986
and it's her wish to bring it back where it belonged. On the subject of the Urdu
language, she spoke of the time when Gandhi wanted Urdu and Hindi to be thought
of as one language but some members of the Congress didn't approve of it. Later
on Gandhi held a procession and things got out of hand vis-à-vis partition,
which made Maulvi Abdul Haq despondent. Speaking about the
administrative and financial issues of the Urdu Dictionary Board, Ms Riaz said
it's been a year since she joined it and there were employees there who hadn't
been promoted to the next grade for the past 25 years. Certain pension-related
cases were pending in courts. And the computers installed there were two decades
old. Dr Farman Fatehpuri rejected the claim that Urdu was the third
widely spoken language in the world. He said languages were analysed on the
basis of their influence and impact, and in that respect Urdu had the widest
reach. He spoke light-heartedly about the languages that had the requisite
auditory effect (sh) but no corresponding words (admission, tuition, etc).
Bearing that in mind, he claimed, Urdu was the first complete language.
Justice Haziqul Khairi lauded the completion of the 22-volume Lughat and
said it was the Quaid-i-Azam's dream that Urdu become our national language.
Sadly, he said, it was not being employed as the official language. He said Urdu
was the language of the masses which is why it should be used in government
offices. Head of the National Language Authority and poet Iftikhar Arif
said the work of a lexicographer was never complete because lexicography is an
ongoing process. He said when the first volume of the Lughat was printed Shanul
Haq Haqqi was no more, though he'd done a lot of work for it. He said 10 volumes
were published when Farman Fatehpuri sahib was heading the board. He said Urdu
should be adopted and not imposed (musallat) on our society and argued that if
the country's linguistic diversity had been accepted things would've been
different. However, the situation improved after the fall of Dhaka. He said that
it was not in 1948 that the Quaid-i-Azam first spoke in favour of Urdu in a
speech that had since become controversial. He added that the Quaid-i-Azam had
regularly been speaking about Urdu since 1913. He claimed that in the last 100
years more Urdu-related work had been done in areas which were traditionally not
thought of as Urdu-speaking regions. Reflecting on Dr Fatehpuri's comment on the
language's impact, he said the biggest region in this regard was India and the
languages that were spoken there and their assimilation into Urdu could not be
ignored. He said Urdu should also accept words from the Sindhi, Punjabi or
Balochi languages. Mr Arif said that while revising lexicon reference
cards such words must be looked into. He said many of the verbs employed in the
Urdu language were derived from Sanskrit or Hindi and wondered if anyone at the
board was familiar with those languages. He said all the asnaad (cards) should
be revised on a continuous basis, and laid emphasis on the need for a one-volume
concise dictionary. He said it didn't matter if the prime minister of the
country didn't consider it important enough to talk about the Lughat, for what
mattered most was that men of letters were all praise for it. If a government
official acknowledged it, it's his or her good fortune. Pro
Vice-Chancellor Shahana Urooj Kazmi was the last speaker of the programme. She
termed the occasion an historic one and echoed the Prof Malahat Kaleem's musings
that Urdu was a universal language. Fahmida Riaz came back to the podium
stating that revision work and work on a concise Urdu Dictionary had already
begun. In the end Mansoor Naqvi thanked the participants and guests of
the programme. Certificates were also distributed among workers and officials of
the board. Dawn
Your Comments
"Dear! Your board did the great. I need a copy of the same LUGHAT from vol 1 upto 22. let me know how will be it possible. thanks alot"
Name: Naqeeb Ahmad Jan
Email: naqibahmadjan@yahoo.com
City, Country:Swat, Pakistan
"I want to get all 22 volumes of lughat."
Name: Ahmad Hussain Mujahid
Email: mashiats@gmail.com
City, Country:Abbottabad
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Scholar claims Urdu most influential language of the world
Karachi: Renowned Urdu scholar Dr Farman Fatehpuri on Saturday negated the
idea that the Urdu language comes third in the rank of global languages.
According to him, the status of a language should be decided in view of its
influence and that Urdu was the most influential language in the
world. Dr Farman Fatehpuri claimed this while speaking at the Arts
auditorium of the University of Karachi (KU) in a programme to appreciate the
performance of the Urdu Dictionary Board (UDB) that has just completed the
compilation of the 22nd volume of the Urdu dictionary. KU's alumni body
Unikarian and the KU had jointly organised the event on Saturday. Dr
Fatehpuri gave the example of the Chinese language that had more than one
billion speakers, arguing that it had influence in certain geographical confines
while Urdu had taken roots in a number of countries. Urdu has a presence in the
entire subcontinent — India, Pakistan and Bangladesh — Nepal, European countries
and North America, he said, adding that the language is also spoken in other
parts of the world. "Urdu has the distinction of having the phonetics and the
letters that conform to it. Other languages are mostly devoid of it," he
stressed. Chairman Urdu Authority (Muqtadra) Pakistan Iftikhar Arif
reminded the audience that there could be no second opinion that Urdu had a
prominent place in Pakistan. "Quaid-e-Azam spoke about the place of Urdu from
1913 till his death. But Urdu has to take along the regional languages. Urdu has
to absorb new words from the regional languages. It will increase the beauty and
linguistic power of Urdu. The UDB has to employ people who are experts in
Arabic, English, Persian, Sanskrit and other languages because Urdu has borrowed
words from these languages. The dictionary should be revised periodically to add
more words that have entered the language and a concise dictionary for the
students and common man would be a welcome step," he suggested. Incumbent
Chief Editor Fahmida Riaz informed the audience that the dictionary was based on
the philological principles (historical principles) that have encompassed 1,000
years of civilisation of the subcontinent. "It is a cultural history, tradition,
custom and narrates the usage of words in various periods during 1000 years".
She praised her staff that had worked diligently to complete the last volume of
the dictionary despite the fact that most of them had no increments for the last
25 years and had no stationary or equipment to do their work. Pro Vice
Chancellor KU Dr Shahana Urooj Kazmi lauded the achievement of the UDB and hoped
that the financial crunch being faced by the organisation will be taken care of.
"If the government is unable to do it, the civil society, the people should come
forward and fill the void," she advised. Former provincial minister and
ex-president of Unikarian Sufwanullah had the view that the language was the
gift from God and a covenant for the mankind from God. He especially mentioned
Shan Ul Haqqee, Dr Farman Fatehpuri and Dr Rauf Parekh who managed to compile
and publish most of the volumes of the dictionary. Earlier Prof Malahat
Kaleem Sherwani gave a presentation on the 'Universality of Urdu language' and
described the development of spoken and written languages in the world. Urdu,
according to her, had the distinction of being the language that was formed in
the camps and spoken by the commoners before the elite of society adopted
it.
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Fake degrees and unprofessional universities
Karachi: The campaign against the fake degrees remained a hot topic in the
country. Interesting, media stories regarding this issue diverted the public
attention from all other important issues like Pak-India foreign ministers
dialogue and Pak-America talks on strategic issues and even the visit of the US
Foreign Secretary Hillary Clinton to Pakistan. This degree issue also diverted
the attention from the reports about the two-year extension in service of Chief
of Army Staff Gen Ashfaq Pervez Kayani. Though it was not officially declared,
reports claimed that the announcement to this effect was expected any time. The
murder of Baloch leader and ex-senator Habib Jalib Baloch was the major tragedy
and the whole Balochistan province remained shut down for three days, but the
media kept focusing on fake degrees issue. Imran Khan was the first who
had started the fake degree campaign and challenged that late PPP Chairperson
Benazir Bhutto had not cleared her final exams and claimed that she had a fake
degree. Imran Khan had launched this campaign on the wishes of military dictator
Gen Pervez Musharraf who, in turn, promised to make him the prime
minister. Imran Khan's campaign turned flop when Benazir Bhutto produced
her degree, however, Gen Musharraf imposed the degree condition for contesting
election. He also allowed Madressah certificates, as most of the candidates of
the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) contested the election on Madressah degrees.
Maulana Fazlur Rehman remained under threat during the entire military regime
era due to having Madressah degree and he supported the controversial 17th
Amendment. The degree issue was raised second time in previous PML-Q led
coalition government headed by Gen Musharraf, when the media challenged the
degree of an MQM MNA and former state minister Amir Liaquat Hussain. Neither the
Election Commission nor any court took action against him. But it was MQM chief
Altaf Hussain who took serious notice of the issue and ordered his party MNA and
minister to resign immediately. Altaf Hussain remained strict on his stance and
he again criticized fake degree holders. He had said on Friday last that how
could such legislators serve the people who used illegal tactics and fake
degrees to reach assemblies. The prime responsibility to check the
degrees lies with the returning officers when the candidates file their
nomination papers. These were the rival candidates who challenged the degrees of
their opponents and filed cases in Election Tribunal. No action was taken and
cases were still pending with Election Tribunal. The issue was highlighted when
the National Assembly's Standing Committee on Education took notice of this
issue, as political observers pointed out that the establishment, which was
waiting for a chance to malign the democratic setup and settle the score, was
now exploiting this issue. Although the PML-N, PML-Q, JUI-F and other
parties also bore the brunt of this heated issue, strong reaction by the PPP and
Sindh government created more doubts in the minds of the people. Sindh
government, particularly provincial Home Minister Dr Zulfiqar Mirza, had claimed
for so many times that there was no political victimization in the province and
neither any political prisoner was languishing in any jail. But the arrest of a
Grade-19 officer Farooq Leghari, brother of Chairman Higher Education Commission
Dr Jawed Leghari, ruined the image of the Sindh government. The HEC had
referred the degrees of the parliamentarians to their respective universities
for verification on the directives of the National Assembly's standing
committee. The role of the HEC in this episode was nothing more than a post
office. It is a fact that a degree could be either genuine or fake but
declaring it as doubtful makes such matter ridiculous. PPP challenged the media
reports that the degree of Faryal Talpur, sister of President Asif Zardari, is
"doubtful". This is nonsense and raised doubts about the system of the
universities. No university issues fake degrees despite the involvement of some
elements in this crime but many questions arose when universities reply of
having "no record". Missing of the record is also a big crime and an act to play
with the hounour and respect of the degree holders. In most of the cases the
universities concerned replied that the record was not available.
Educationists admitted that most of the universities did not maintain
proper record. There is a system in the universities that the enrolment of
students, their roll numbers and results are registered in a Master Register but
tempering with such record is not difficult. It is amazing that the school
record of the father of the nation Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah is available
but unfortunately Karachi University has no record before 1960. NED was a
college before 1977 but after attaining the university status the NED did not
have its college record. Same is the situation with Dow Medical College. Karachi
University used to award the MBBS degrees to Dow Medical College graduates but
the situation changed few years back when the medical college was given the
university status and it did not have the record of former Dow Medical College
graduates. Most of the educational institutions in the country have similar
situation and every degree holder will be facing the same agony if record was
not available with the educational institutions concerned. -khan.tahirhkhan@gmail.com
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SSUET final year project
Karachi: Students of final year of the Department of the Computer Engineering of Sir Syed University of
Engineering and Technology (SSUET) held a poster exhibition as part of their
project, said a press release issued on Sunday, A total of 54 posters of
innovative projects designed by the students were put on display. Speaking on
the occasion, Chancellor, Engineer ZA Nizami said that advancement in science
and technology was essential for the progress and development of the nation. The news
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