Negotiating Languages

A monumental work. Its eloquence is sublime, the stories are tantalizing, and the illustrations are gripping. -- Syed Akbar Hyder, author of Reliving Karbala: Martyrdom in South Asian Memory South Asianists have needed a pioneering book that takes seriously the ideological underpinnings of dictionary production and meaning-making across a range of linguistic, cultural, and class boundaries and shows how dynamic such exchanges often are. Negotiating Languages is a major contribution to the study of South Asia. -- Christi Merrill, author of Riddles of Belonging: India in Translation and Other Tales of Possession Who knew that lexicographical analysis could be so historically revelatory, culturally astute, and rich in anecdotes? Hakala's book is not only a source to be mined for information but also a joy to read. Everyone with an interest in South Asian language history will find it both a treasure and a pleasure. -- Frances Pritchett, author of Nets of Awareness: Urdu Poetry and Its Critics A pioneering study of Hindi/Urdu lexicography, Hakala's book is an equally significant contribution to the sociology of Urdu's premodern literature. His meticulous analyses of four lexicons, dating from the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries, bring revealing insights to the issues that much concerned not only the lexicographers but also all the creative writers of those times, as well as issues of linguistic authority and authenticity and gender and class identities. -- C. M. Naim, author of Urdu Texts and Contexts A brilliant contribution to the story of how Hindustani emerged as a standardized, comprehensive language, and in the end diverged into Urdu and Hindi as languages of cultural and national identity. With great originality, Hakala shows how dictionaries change over time in their sources, format, claims to authenticity, and the populations they at once reflect and create. We will never look at the Fallon, Platts, and Farhang that sit on our desks in the same way again. -- Barbara D. Metcalf, author of Islamic Revival in British India: Deoband, 1860-1900