The English-Dhivehi Dictionary, the most extensive book to be published in Maldives and prepared by Dr. Hassan Hameed, will be published in July.

Dr. Hassan told Mihaaru News that he estimates the book will be officially published in the middle of July.

After he had gifted a copy of the book to former President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, Hassan has extended an invitation to him to formally launch it.

President Gayoom accepted the invite and stated that if time and circumstances allow, he is eager to attend the launch ceremony.

Dr. Hassan said that the launch will see an end to the long-wait being experienced by those who love the Dhivehi language. He also said that there is no one other than President Gayoom who is a better fit to launch the book.

The book is a dictionary that has been compiled by Hassan that has more than 120,000 English words with the Dhivehi meaning and spans 1,992 pages.

The feature that stands out the most is that, not only does the book include the usual meanings for words, but instead includes descriptions of how to pronounce write English words in Thaana (the Maldivian script for the Dhivehi language), proper meanings of words, how the words can be used and detailed information on words that have more than one meaning.

This is a book that is rich in information and has been prepared with the aid of many other dictionaries based on extensive research and to give its readers a convenient option to learn the meanings of words.

According to Hassan, the work that was done to compile the book had more effort put into it than the academic work behind two to three PhD's.

Hassan has published the meanings of some letters and words online in the past, and his aim is to make a website specifically for the book so that the general public can easily access it, which will be done after a few first editions of the book are printed and published.