
Hobson-Jobson
The Definitive Glossary of British India
Kate Teltscher(Editor)
Oxford University Press
Published on 13. June 2013
Book
Hardback
624 pages
978-0-19-960113-4 (ISBN)
Article exhausted; check for reprint
Description
Hobson-Jobson is a unique work of maverick scholarship. Compiled in 1886 by two India enthusiasts, it documents the words and phrases that entered English from Arabic, Persian, Indian, and Chinese sources - and vice versa. Described by Salman Rushdie as 'the legendary dictionary of British India' it shows how words of Indian origin were absorbed into the English language and records not only the vocabulary but the culture of the Raj. It encompasses
aspects of the history, trade, peoples, and geography of Asia in entries that are at once authoritative and playful. Like the Oxford English Dictionary, Hobson-Jobson included illustrative quotations that were drawn from a wide range of travel texts, histories, memoirs, and novels, creating a canon of English
writing about India. The definitions frequently slip into anecdote, reminiscence, and digression, and they offer intriguing insights into Victorian attitudes to India and its people and customs.
With its delight in language, etymology, and puns, Hobson-Jobson has fascinated generations of writers from Rudyard Kipling to Tom Stoppard and Amitav Ghosh. This selected edition retains the range and idiosyncrasy of the original, and Kate Teltscher's introduction and notes provide fascinating information on the glossary's creation, and its significance for the English language.
aspects of the history, trade, peoples, and geography of Asia in entries that are at once authoritative and playful. Like the Oxford English Dictionary, Hobson-Jobson included illustrative quotations that were drawn from a wide range of travel texts, histories, memoirs, and novels, creating a canon of English
writing about India. The definitions frequently slip into anecdote, reminiscence, and digression, and they offer intriguing insights into Victorian attitudes to India and its people and customs.
With its delight in language, etymology, and puns, Hobson-Jobson has fascinated generations of writers from Rudyard Kipling to Tom Stoppard and Amitav Ghosh. This selected edition retains the range and idiosyncrasy of the original, and Kate Teltscher's introduction and notes provide fascinating information on the glossary's creation, and its significance for the English language.
Reviews / Votes
Everyone interested in British India should have a copy. * Andrew Robinson, The Independent * [Hobson-Jobson] is a work of extraordinary Victorian scholarship, compiled over 14 years. At the same time, it's an eccentric compilation of the language and lore of British India, with the same delightfully rambling, anecdotal quality as, say Brewer's Phrase & Fable, though slightly more reliable. * John Morril, The Tablet * Hobson-Jobson is a classic of British teamwork. Its editors, Yule and Burnell, should be as celebrated as Gilbert and Sullivan, Liddell and Scott or Fortnum and Mason. For Hobson-Jobson is a rare dictionary that can be read for pleasure, like an old edition of Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable. * Christopher Howse, Sunday Telegraph *More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Oxford
United Kingdom
Target group
College/higher education
Professional and scholarly
Dimensions
Height: 198 mm
Width: 136 mm
Thickness: 37 mm
Weight
742 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-19-960113-4 (9780199601134)
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Book
06/2015
Oxford University Press
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Additional editions

Book
06/2015
Oxford University Press
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E-Book
06/2013
1st Edition
OUP eBook
€5.49
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E-Book
06/2013
1st Edition
OUP eBook
€5.49
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Persons
Kate Teltscher has written about Indian literature and colonial works for both an academic and general readership. Her book The High Road to China: George Bogle, the Panchen Lama and the First British Expedition to Tibet (Bloomsbury, 2006; Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 2007) was shortlisted for the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Biography.