A Comprehensive Persian-English Dictionary: Including the Arabic Words and Phrases to Be Met with in Persian Literature [Hardcover]

Francis Joseph Steingass (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 8121507111 | ISBN-13: 978-8121507110 | Publication Date: January 2000

excellent reprint of a classic, very good production. over 1500 pages.

Editorial Reviews

Language Notes

Text: English, Persian --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 1548 pages
• Publisher: Munshiram Manoharlal Publishers (January 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 8121507111
• ISBN-13: 978-8121507110
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 7.3 x 2.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,203,014 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Classical Persian lexicon, July 17, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Comprehensive Persian-English Dictionary (Hardcover)

As the reviewer from Jerusalem says, an excellent dictionary which ought to be on the shelf of any Persianist. But... the book is a hundred years old and Modern Persian is significantly different, so don't buy it expecting to use it for the newspaper.

20 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The Steingass Comprehensive Persian-English Dictionary, April 4, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: A Comprehensive Persian-English Dictionary: Including the Arabic Words and Phrases to Be Met with in Persian Literature (Hardcover)

Steingass's dictionary is a useful tool for all those studying the Persian language, and in particular to those more interested in poetry and classical Persian. This comprehensive dictionary includes not only words and phrases, but also pronunciation aids (especially important for reading poetry). There are words in the dictionary which are not usually used in modern Persian, but on the whole it is an important and significant tool for Persian researchers and students.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Indispensable for Classical Persian literature, November 18, 2007

By 

Paul Stevenson "Linguist" (Duhok, Iraq) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: A Comprehensive Persian English Dictionary Including the Arabic Words and Phrases To Be Met Within Persian Literature (Hardcover)

Francis Joseph Steingass did a remarkable job of compiling this enormous vocabulary of literary Persian at the end of the 19th century. If your goal is to read classical Persian literature, this dictionary is a must-have.

Steingass includes full vocalizations for all words, which is very helpful. His system of vowel transliteration is quite antiquated, though. It is the old British system, which seems to have been imported from Arabic, to which it is much better suited. However, those familiar with Modern Persian pronunciation will be able to figure out the correct equivalents for Steingass' choices.

I own the Manohar reprint pictured here. The paper is cheap and tears easily, but the quality of printing is actually pretty good. Most pages are clearly printed. While a few are slightly blurry or light, they are always legible. Furthermore, unlike some Indian publications I have seen, the text is well lined up on almost all pages. The margins don't vary wildly and on all but a very few pages, the edge of the text is parallel with the edge of the paper. Where the text is at a bit of an angle, it is not a great angle and does not look too awkward. (I include these comments because I suspect that other readers might, as I did, feel some trepidation about forking out money for an Indian reprint, as some of these are of rather bad quality.) Overall, I am quite happy to settle for less than wonderful paper in exchange for a very reasonable price for this tome. European or American reprints of books of comparable size can run several times the price.

For more contemporary Persian, you should consider the small but handy Persian-English English-Persian Learner's Dictionary or the larger and more complete The Combined New Persian-English and English-Persian Dictionary.