author
John T. (John Thompson) Platts
1830–1904
Best known for making Urdu and Hindustani more accessible to English readers, this 19th-century scholar produced reference works that stayed useful long after his lifetime. His dictionaries and grammars helped generations of students approach South Asian languages with more confidence.
1 Audiobook
The Baitâl Pachchisi; Or, The Twenty-Five Tales of a Sprite Translated From the Hindi Text of Dr. Duncan Forbes
by John T. (John Thompson) Platts, Lallu Lal, active 1805 Mazhar Ali Khan Vila
About the author
Born in Calcutta in 1830, John Thompson Platts was a British language scholar closely associated with the study of Urdu, Hindustani, Persian, and Hindi. He is remembered above all for major reference works including A Dictionary of Urdu, Classical Hindi, and English and grammars that were widely valued for their clarity and practical use.
Platts spent much of his working life in education in India, and his scholarship reflected both classroom experience and deep engagement with South Asian languages. Accounts of his career describe him as an influential writer of language manuals at a time when reliable tools for English-speaking learners were still relatively scarce.
He died in 1904. Although he is not as widely known today as some literary authors, his books remained important to students and scholars for many years, and his name still turns up wherever the history of Urdu and Hindustani language study is discussed.