Manuscript Signed ("R.M. Binning"), being a Deccani-English vocabulary. Madras: c.1844. Approx. 152 leaves, primarily rectos only but most facing versos with a few lines of addenda, folio, in brown ink on blue paper, entitled, "Vocabulary. English into Dukhnee. The Dialect of Hindostanee used by the Mussulmans of the Carnatic and Southern India." Later quarter morocco over cloth. Spine worn, some marks to endpapers, contents fine.
Provenance: Waterhouse Collection (library bookplate).

Robert Binning served in the East India Company in Madras. He was an enthusiastic linguist in Arabic, Persian and Hindi and a significant collector of important Islamic manuscripts. He published a grammar of modern Arabic in 1849 and an account of his travels in Persia and Ceylon in 1857.
Deccani (or Dakhini) is the language common to Muslims on the Deccan plain, similar to Urdu, but thought to have developed in parallel to Urdu rather than derived from it. The present manuscript has much of interest, in addition to a lengthy vocabulary, Binning has made occasional notes as to shades of meaning, multiple meanings, and related entries. For example there are 33 entries under the heading of "gun" and 18 for "hookah."