Kashmiri first, lags behind
As ‘firsts’ go, they are almost always important landmarks of achievement and contribute greatly to human understanding and endeavour; take some classic examples from the past; The first printing press, the first instance of powered flight and the first English dictionary. This last achievement, of course, marked the beginnings of the standardisation of the English language and saw the beginning of the end of quaint and ‘olde’ spellings commonly found before the dictionary’s advent.
I mention this last ‘first’ in particular, because of the plight of the Kashmiri Academy of Culture and Languages. The first ever Encyclopaedia / Dictionary of Kashmiri Language, Archaeological Heritage, Architecture, Coins, Kashmiri Handicrafts and Kashmiri Literature, was compiled and printed by the Academy over two decades ago in 1986, but has sadly never been updated nor translated into any other language since then. The Academy has managed to add to the corpus of their work, however, by adding a further three volumes.
It will be recognised by all linguists that encyclopaedic works such as these need to be constantly updated and translated into other languages in order to ensure their accessability to foreign readers and researchers, but although translations into English have been proposed several times, these have always been turned down for various reasons…but besides this, the Academy is in somewhat of a catch 22 situation anyway.
The Kashmiri Encyclopaedia has only ever been through one ‘in house’ print run and has never been re-printed. Because of this no copies are commercially available and Academy procedures state that re-prints can only be authorised if commercial feedback dictates this or if commercial stocks have run out…obviously none of these apply as there were never any commercial copies…as sad and unfortunate an example of a ‘catch 22’ situation as I have come across!