Literary notes: Balochi lexicography and new dictionary in four languages.

MANSEL Longworth Dames (1850-1922) was a strange fellow: he learnt several eastern languages, such as Balochi and Pashto; wrote books on Baloch race, Baloch history, Balochi language and folklore; took part in Second Anglo-Afghan War; studied Buddhist art; collected Buddhist relics (though he finally took those relics to the UK).

Dames was a scholar of Portuguese but as an officer of the Indian Civil Service during the Raj, he was posted in Punjab. At Dera Ghazi Khan, he met some Balochi-speaking people who fascinated him much and he began learning the language. Later on, he wrote on Baloch people and the language they spoke.

After his retirement, Dames contributed several articles to Encyclopaedia of Islam. He became active member of several organisations and societies in the UK, including Royal Asiatic Society, that were researching history, relics, folklores, religions and languages of the East. Dames was instrumental in reorganising Buddhist enclosures at the British Museum.

His contributions to several fields were remarkable, but what Dames did for Balochi language and literature can never be forgotten: he penned at least six books on Balochi language and literature in an era when Balochi literature consisted mostly of oral tradition and written specimens of the language were hard to come by.

The books that Dames penned are considered among the earliest works on Balochi language and literature.

In his book A Sketch of the Northern Balochi Language (1881), he included grammar, vocabulary and specimens of the language as well. In 1891, Dames published A Textbook of Balochi Language and it included some Balochi stories, poems and legends. More importantly it carried a 'Balochi-English Vocabulary'.

Another important work by Dames is Popular Poetry of Baloches [sic]. Published in 1907, it preserved some valuable samples of Balochi poetry.

Dr Riazat Burro, a scholar form Larkana, has mentioned in one of his articles that despite these pioneering efforts in Balochi dictionary-writing by Dames, Balochi lexicography could not make much progress for several reasons and except for a couple of small Balochi dictionaries no major Balochi dictionary was compiled in the next several decades.

On the basis of Balochi-English vocabulary included in Dames' two books, a new book titled Vocabulary of the Balochi Language was published by Government of Punjab Printing Press in 1922, that is, the year Dames died.

According to Dr Burro, this 216-page book has...