Sir Bartle Frere was chief commissioner of Sindh from 1850 to 1859. In 1849 the British produced an English-Sindhi dictionary in Devnagri. Majority of government servants were Hindus who favoured the Arabic script because they did not know Devnagri. A big debate started, Sir Bartle Frere, the then commissioner of Sindh, referred the matter to the British East India Company’s Court of Directors, who ruled in favour of the Arabic script on the ground that Muslim names could not be written in Devnagri. Thereafter, Sir Richard Burton, an Orientalist, with the help of local scholars MunshiThanwardas and Mirza Sadiq Ali Beg evolved a 52-letterSindhialphabet.
