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; 1879–March 9, 1959) was a prominent Iranian linguist, and author of the most extensive dictionary of the Persian language ever published.
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 the School of Law of the University of Tehran.[1]
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.
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, Jahangir Khan and Ghasem Khan had been publishing Soor-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 at Ebn-e Babooyeh cemetery in Shahr-e Ray, near Tehran.
[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.
