Iranian thinker
Ali Akbar Dehkhoda
Ali Akbar DehkhodaLinguistics, lexicography, Persian literatureIranian1879–1956
"Any nation that does not preserve its own language loses its intellectual independence."
Life and Thought
Ali Akbar Dehkhoda was a prominent Iranian writer, journalist, linguist, and lexicographer, best known as the author of the monumental Dehkhoda Dictionary. He was an influential figure in the Iranian Constitutional Revolution and played an important role in the development of modern Persian prose through his literary, scholarly, and journalistic works.
Ali Akbar Dehkhoda was born in Tehran in 1879. After studying both traditional and modern sciences, he turned toward cultural and political activities and participated in the Constitutional period through his collaboration with the newspaper Sur-e Esrafil. His satirical writings under the pen name “Dakhou,” especially in the famous column “Charand Parand,” are considered among the early outstanding examples of social satire in Persian prose.
After the Constitutional Revolution and the political changes that followed, Dehkhoda was active for a period in politics and became a member of the National Consultative Assembly. He later devoted most of his efforts to linguistic and literary research and the compilation of one of the greatest works of Persian lexicography.
His most important work, the Dehkhoda Dictionary, was the result of decades of research on Persian vocabulary, expressions, proper names, and literary texts. It remains one of the most important resources for Persian lexicography and vocabulary studies. Dehkhoda also contributed to textual scholarship, literary research, and Persian language education.
In his later years, Dehkhoda served as head of the School of Political Sciences and later the Faculty of Law at the University of Tehran. He died in Tehran in 1956.