Multidimensional associative arrays in Bash

You can’t do what you’re trying to do: bash arrays are one-dimensional

$ declare -A PERSONS
$ declare -A PERSON
$ PERSON["FNAME"]='John'
$ PERSON["LNAME"]='Andrew'
$ declare -p PERSON
declare -A PERSON='([FNAME]="John" [LNAME]="Andrew" )'
$ PERSONS[1]=([FNAME]="John" [LNAME]="Andrew" )
bash: PERSONS[1]: cannot assign list to array member

You can fake multidimensionality by composing a suitable array index string:

declare -A PERSONS
declare -A PERSON

PERSON["FNAME"]='John'
PERSON["LNAME"]='Andrew'
i=1
for key in "${!PERSON[@]}"; do
  PERSONS[$i,$key]=${PERSON[$key]}
done

PERSON["FNAME"]='Elen'
PERSON["LNAME"]='Murray'
((i++))
for key in "${!PERSON[@]}"; do
  PERSONS[$i,$key]=${PERSON[$key]}
done

declare -p PERSONS
# ==> declare -A PERSONS='([1,LNAME]="Andrew" [2,FNAME]="Elen" [1,FNAME]="John" [2,LNAME]="Murray" )'