The Bosnian-Persian dictionary, which was created in the organization of the Scientific Research Institute “Ibn Sina” and the Faculty of Philosophy of the University of Sarajevo, was presented on Wednesday in Gazi Husrev-bey’s library.
One of the authors of the dictionary, professor of Persian language and literature at the Department of Oriental Philology of the Faculty of Philosophy of the University of Sarajevo, Munir Drkić, pointed out that creating the dictionary was an extremely demanding job, especially because it was being translated from Bosnian to Persian.
“Such a dictionary is needed by our culture because it connects the Bosnian language with the long lexicographical tradition of the Persian language. This is the first Bosnian-Persian dictionary and one of the capital projects in connecting two lexicographic traditions,” said Drkić.
He added that the agreement on the creation of the dictionary was reached in 2011, and the work began in February 2012, and lasted for almost 14 years.
The dictionary contains 50,000 entries, along with translations, transcriptions, examples, proverbs and phrases, and was published with the support of the Federal Ministry of Education and Science.
“The Persian language, although it comes from a distant geographical area, is typologically similar to the Bosnian language and had a significant influence in the Balkans, especially in the Ottoman period,” emphasized Drkić.
President of the Foundation for Iranian Studies of the Islamic Republic of Iran, dr. Ali Akbar Salehi assessed that the Persian language has a special place in the cultural history of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
“The Persian language can also represent a bright thread connecting two cultures in the future. Bosnia and Herzegovina, as a link between East and West, occupies a special place in Europe, and the Persian language, one of the pillars of Eastern culture, is spread from China to Europe,” said Salehic, Fena writes.
The Bosnian-Persian dictionary is the result of more than 14 years of continuous scientific effort by a group of professors and researchers of the Persian and Bosnian languages. The project was started in 2011 in Sarajevo under the leadership of eminent prof. Ph.D. Namir Karahalilović with the participation of a group of professors and researchers of Persian language and literature.
Previously, in 2010, a Persian-Bosnian dictionary was published by the “Ibn Sina” Scientific Research Institute. The Bosnian-Persian dictionary completes this previous Dictionary and represents an additional step in promoting education and research in these two languages.
In the introduction to the Dictionary, the respected authors presented the scientific and technical structure of this work and analyzed in detail the history of the Persian language and literature in Bosnia and Herzegovina and its role in the cultural interactions of the two nations.
The president of the Academy of Persian Language and Literature IR Iran, dr. Haddad Adel, and the reviewers of the dictionary are prof. Ph.D. Taghi Poornamdarian, prof. Ph.D. Ismail Palić and Prof. Ph.D. Ahmed Zildzic.


