Ali-Akbar Dehkhoda

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Note: In some Wikipedia articles, the word "Dehkhoda" can refer to "Dehkhoda's Dictionary" or Dehkhoda himself.

Allameh Ali Akbar Dehkhoda (علی‌اکبر دهخدا in Persian; 1879March 9, 1959) was a prominent Iranian linguist, and author of the most extensive dictionary of the Persian language ever published.

Dehkhoda was born in Tehran to parents from Qazvin. His father died when he was only 10 years old. Dehkhoda quickly excelled in Persian literature, Arabic and French and graduated from College studying political science.

He was also active in politics, and served in the Majles as a Member of Parliament from Kerman and Tehran. He also served as Dean of Tehran School of Political Science and later the School of Law of the University of Tehran.[1]

In 1903, he went to the Balkan Peninsula as an Iranian embassy employee, but came back to Iran two years later and became involved in the Constitutional Revolution of Iran.

In Iran Dehkhoda, Mirza Jahangir Khan and Ghasem Khan had been publishing the Sur-e Esrafil newspaper for about two years, but the authoritarian king Mohammad Ali Shah disbanded the parliament and banished Dehkhoda and some other liberalists into exile in Europe. There he continued publishing articles and editorials, but when Mohammad Ali Shah was deposed in 1911, he returned to the country and became a member of the new Majles parliament.

He is buried in Ebn-e Babooyeh cemetery in Shahr-e Ray, near Tehran.[1]

Contents

[edit] Books

Dehkhoda translated Montesquieu's De l'esprit des lois (The Spirit of the Laws) into Persian. He has also written Amsal o Hekam ("Proverbs and Mottos") in four volumes, a French-Persian Dictionary, and other books, but his lexicographic masterpiece is Loghat-naameh-ye Dehkhoda ("Dehkhoda Dictionary"), the largest Persian dictionary ever published, in 15 volumes. Dr. Mohammad Moin accomplished Dehkhoda's unfinished volumes according to Dehkhoda's request after him. Finally the book was published after forty five years of efforts of Dehkhoda.

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Photograph of Dehkhoda's grave: (1), (2).

[edit] Further reading

  • A.-A. Sa'īdī Sirjāni, Dehkhodā, Encyclopaedia Iranica, [2].
  • Ğolām-Hosayn Yūsofī [Gholam-Hossein Yūsofī], Čarand Parand [Charand Parand], Encyclopaedia Iranica, [3].

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

  • Tehran University Press
  • Dehkhoda and Mossadegh
  • Dehkhoda in Iran Science Island (Persian)
  • In memory of Ali-Akbar Dehkhoda (یادنامه علی اکبر دهخدا), Bukhara (بخارا), Review of Arts, Culture and Humanities (in Persian), No. 47, pp. 33-126 [4].
  • Shahnaz Moradi-Kuchaki and Fath'ollah Esmaili Golharani, Chronology of life of Ali-Akbar Dehkhoda (سال شمار زندگى على اكبر دهخدا), Bukhara (بخارا), Review of Arts, Culture and Humanities (in Persian), No. 47, pp. 34-37 [5].
  • Sayyed Hasan Taqizadeh, The Story of Dehkhoda (سرگذشت دهخدا), Bukhara (بخارا), Review of Arts, Culture and Humanities (in Persian), No. 47, pp. 38-42 [6].
  • Symā Sayyāh, Dehkhoda Institute: A Hidden National Treasure, Payvand, 19 March 2007, [7].
  • Mohmmad Āsefi, Yadvāreh-ye Mojāhedāt va Reshādathā-ye Ali-Akbar Deh'khodā, Ālem va Azādi'khāh-e Māndegār (Remembrance of the Struggles and Braveries of Ali-Akbar Dehkhoda, the Enduring Scholar and Liberal), Etemād-e Melli, No. 337, 15 April 2007, [8].