TEHRAN -- Iran’s first Greek-Persian dictionary has been compiled by Erfan Qaneifard.

“This is a foundation for users’ studies and also a source for people who will work in this field in the future,” Qaneifard told the Persian service of IRNA on Saturday.

The dictionary contains 3500 Greek words with 98,000 Persian equivalents.

“Maybe we should name this dictionary an introduction, whose reliability can be determined by linguists. However, this introduction gives a limited knowledge of the Greek and Persian languages,” Qaneifard noted.

“The small dictionary has some deficiencies, but I hope to improve it in the future,” he added.

The lexicon is a scheduled to be released simultaneously in Tehran and Athens in January 2007 in a collaborative effort by Iran’s Keshavarz Publications and the Greek Embassy in Tehran.

“In light of the long history of relations between the Iranian and Greek nations, it is astonishing that there has never been a reliable Greek-Persian dictionary worthy of such a relationship, with the exception of very small glossaries in libraries,” Qaneifard observed.

“The dictionary is a bridge between the languages of Socrates, Hippocrates, and Aristotle in the city-state of Athens and Khayyam, Avicenna, Rhazes, and Biruni in Iran. It is not a wonderful and miraculous scholarly event, although it can be described as a bold move,” he said in conclusion.