HYDERABAD, April 14: The Director, of the Institute of Languages, University of Sindh, Professor (Dr) N.B.G. Kazi, has said that Dr Ernest Trumpp's Sindhi Grammar is a scholarly work and he pioneered the publication of Shah jo Risalo.

He was delivering a lecture on Dr Trumpp at the Jamshoro campus on Wednesday, which was a part of the founder's week being celebrated by the university to pay homage to its founder and philosopher Allama I.I. Kazi on his 36th death anniversary.

Dr Kazi said that in 1858, Dr Trumpp compiled a Sindhi reading book in Sanskrit and Arabic alphabets and contributed articles to a journal of the German Oriental Society on the Sindhi language.

He said that Mr Trumpp appeared to have travelled in the southern part of Sindh and "I was told in Hyderabad that the room in the Church Missionary Society Building where he worked on Sindhi grammar was still intact but I could not get any documentary proof of his stay in Hyderabad".

He said that Dr Trumpp also made a 23-day journey up the River Indus, visited Lahore and Peshawar and learned not only Pushto but also the language of the so-called Kafir community.

He said that in 1866, Dr Trumpp got Shah jo Risalo printed in Leipzig which was the first printed edition of the anthology of Sindh's greatest Sufi poet, Shah Abdul Latif Bhitai.

The scholar said that four year later, the British government sent Dr Trumpp to Lahore for translating the religious book of the Sikh, Adi Granth, and added that the scholar stayed in Lahore for about two years and translated the book which was published in 1877.

He said that Dr Trumpp also developed an interest in the language of Gypsies and even tried to write a grammar of the language of Indian origin.