A lot of specialized literature on the origin of words of European languages is available. There are efforts made to make it accessible to the non-specialist. Some newspapers in Europe and the United States have carried popular columns that entertain through stories behind words. Judging from the popularity of these columns and the reception they got as compiled books later on, readers have always been interested in knowing how the words originate and become current in languages. Word forWord is a pioneering work because it explores the common etymologies of Urdu, Persian, Hindi and Urdu words of everyday usage. It surprises with its ability to link Urdu and Persian words with English and the other European languages. For instance how Urdu and Persian 'sog' (sorrow) is linked to Hindu 'shok' as in 'ashok' (without sorrow) and German 'sorg' which is the root for English 'sorrow'. Not much has been done about word roots after Muhammad Hussain Azad and his 'Sukhan Dan-e-Fars'.

This book is written for the common reader in the form of stories behind words that come to us from Arabic and the Indo-European languages.