Dictionary

A dictionary is a listing of

The first recorded dictionaries date back to Sumerian times around 2300 BCE, in the form of bilingual dictionaries, and the oldest surviving monolingual dictionaries are Chinese dictionaries c. 3rd century BCE. The first purely English alphabetical dictionary was A Table Alphabeticall, written in 1604, and monolingual dictionaries in other languages also began appearing in Europe at around this time. The systematic study of dictionaries as objects of scientific interest arose as a 20th-century enterprise, called lexicography, and largely initiated by Ladislav Zgusta.^[6] The birth of the new discipline was not without controversy, with the practical dictionary-makers being sometimes accused by others of having an "astonishing" lack of method and critical-self reflection.^[8]

History

The oldest known dictionaries were

Amir Khusro compiled the Khaliq-e-bari, which mainly dealt with Hindustani and Persian words.^[18]

In medieval Europe,

The first purely English alphabetical dictionary was A Table Alphabeticall, written by English schoolteacher Robert Cawdrey in 1604.^[2][3] The only surviving copy is found at the Bodleian Library in Oxford. This dictionary, and the many imitators which followed it, was seen as unreliable and nowhere near definitive. Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield was still lamenting in 1754, 150 years after Cawdrey's publication, that it is "a sort of disgrace to our nation, that hitherto we have had no… standard of our language; our dictionaries at present being more properly what our neighbors the Dutch and the Germans call theirs, word-books, than dictionaries in the superior sense of that title."^[25]

In 1616, John Bullokar described the history of the dictionary with his "English Expositor". Glossographia by

It was not until Samuel Johnson's A Dictionary of the English Language (1755) that a more reliable English dictionary was produced.^[3] Many people today mistakenly believe that Johnson wrote the first English dictionary: a testimony to this legacy.^[2][27] By this stage, dictionaries had evolved to contain textual references for most words, and were arranged alphabetically, rather than by topic (a previously popular form of arrangement, which meant all animals would be grouped together, etc.). Johnson's masterwork could be judged as the first to bring all these elements together, creating the first "modern" dictionary.^[27]

Johnson's dictionary remained the English-language standard for over 150 years, until the Oxford University Press began writing and releasing the Oxford English Dictionary in short fascicles from 1884 onwards.^[3] It took nearly 50 years to complete this huge work, and they finally released the complete OED in twelve volumes in 1928.^{[citation needed]} One of the main contributors to this modern dictionary was an ex-army surgeon, William Chester Minor, a convicted murderer who was confined to an asylum for the criminally insane.^[28]

The OED remains the most comprehensive and trusted English language dictionary to this day, with revisions and updates added by a dedicated team every three months.

American English dictionaries

In 1806, American Noah Webster published his first dictionary, A Compendious Dictionary of the English Language.^[3] In 1807 Webster began compiling an expanded and fully comprehensive dictionary, An American Dictionary of the English Language; it took twenty-seven years to complete. To evaluate the etymology of words, Webster learned twenty-six languages, including Old English (Anglo-Saxon), German, Greek, Latin, Italian, Spanish, French, Hebrew, Arabic, and Sanskrit.

Webster completed his dictionary during his year abroad in 1825 in Paris, France, and at the

Controversy over the lack of usage advice in the 1961 Webster's Third New International Dictionary spurred publication of the 1969 The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, the first dictionary to use corpus linguistics.

Types

In a general dictionary, each word may have multiple meanings. Some dictionaries include each separate meaning in the order of most common usage while others list definitions in historical order, with the oldest usage first.^[29]

In many languages, words can appear in many different forms, but only the

According to the Manual of Specialized Lexicographies, a

Another variant is the glossary, an alphabetical list of defined terms in a specialized field, such as medicine (medical dictionary).

Defining dictionaries

The simplest dictionary, a

Because of the widespread use of dictionaries in schools, and their acceptance by many as language authorities, their treatment of the language does affect usage to some degree, with even the most descriptive dictionaries providing conservative continuity. In the long run, however, the meanings of words in English are primarily determined by usage, and the language is being changed and created every day.[33] As Jorge Luis Borges says in the prologue to "El otro, el mismo": "It is often forgotten that (dictionaries) are artificial repositories, put together well after the languages they define. The roots of language are irrational and of a magical nature."

Sometimes the same dictionary can be descriptive in some domains and prescriptive in others. For example, according to Ghil'ad Zuckermann, the Oxford English-Hebrew Dictionary is "at war with itself": whereas its coverage (lexical items) and glosses (definitions) are descriptive and colloquial, its vocalization is prescriptive. This internal conflict results in absurd sentences such as hi taharóg otí kshetiré me asíti lamkhonít (she'll tear me apart when she sees what I've done to the car). Whereas hi taharóg otí, literally 'she will kill me', is colloquial, me (a variant of ma 'what') is archaic, resulting in a combination that is unutterable in real life.^[34]

Historical dictionaries

A historical dictionary is a specific kind of descriptive dictionary which describes the development of words and senses over time, usually using citations to original source material to support its conclusions.^[35]

Dictionaries for natural language processing

In contrast to traditional dictionaries, which are designed to be used by human beings, dictionaries for

• Bilingual dictionary
• Collegiate dictionary
  (American)
• Learner's dictionary
  (mostly British)
• Electronic dictionary
• Encyclopedic dictionary
• Monolingual learner's dictionary
  • Advanced learner's dictionary
• By sound
  • Rhyming dictionary
• Reverse dictionary (Conceptual dictionary)
• Visual dictionary
• Satirical dictionary
• Phonetic dictionary

Pronunciation

In many languages, such as the English language, the pronunciation of some words is not consistently apparent from their spelling. In these languages, dictionaries usually provide the pronunciation. For example, the definition for the word dictionary might be followed by the International Phonetic Alphabet spelling /ˈdɪkʃənəri/ (in British English) or /ˈdɪkʃənɛri/ (in American English). American English dictionaries often use their own pronunciation respelling systems with diacritics, for example dictionary is respelled as "dĭk′shə-nĕr′ē" in the American Heritage Dictionary.^[37] The IPA is more commonly used within the British Commonwealth countries. Yet others use their own pronunciation respelling systems without diacritics: for example, dictionary may be respelled as DIK-shə-nerr-ee. Some online or electronic dictionaries provide audio recordings of words being spoken.

Examples

Major English dictionaries

Further information: Comparison of English dictionaries

Dictionaries of other languages

Histories and descriptions of the dictionaries of other languages on Wikipedia include:

• Arabic dictionaries
• Chinese dictionaries
• Persian Language
  )
• Dutch dictionaries
• French dictionaries
• German dictionaries
• Japanese dictionaries
• Polish dictionaries
• Scottish Gaelic dictionaries
• Scottish Language Dictionaries
• Sindhi Language Dictionaries

Online dictionaries

Further information: List of online dictionaries and Category:Online dictionaries

The age of the Internet brought online dictionaries to the desktop and, more recently, to the smart phone. David Skinner in 2013 noted that "Among the top ten lookups on Merriam-Webster Online at this moment are holistic, pragmatic, caveat, esoteric and bourgeois. Teaching users about words they don't already know has been, historically, an aim of lexicography, and modern dictionaries do this well."^[38]

There exist a number of websites which operate as online dictionaries, usually with a specialized focus. Some of them have exclusively user driven content, often consisting of

neologisms. Some of the more notable examples are given in List of online dictionaries and Category:Online dictionaries

.

See also

•  Books portal
• Comparison of English dictionaries
• Centre for Lexicography
• COBUILD, a large corpus of English text
• Corpus linguistics
• DICT, the dictionary server protocol
• Dictionary Society of North America
• Fictitious entry
• Foreign language writing aid
• Lexicographic error
• Lists of dictionaries
• Thesaurus
• Dreaming of Words

Notes

1. ^ Webster's New World College Dictionary, Fourth Edition, 2002
2. ^ ^{a b c} Nordquist, Richard (August 9, 2019). "The Features, Functions, and Limitations of Dictionaries". ThoughtCo. Archived from the original on May 26, 2022. Retrieved November 13, 2022.
3. ^ ^{a b c d e} "Dictionary". Britannica. Archived from the original on July 8, 2022. Retrieved November 13, 2022.
4. ISSN 1684-4904
   .
5. ^ A Practical Guide to Lexicography, Sterkenburg 2003, pp. 155–157
6. ^ ^{a b} A Practical Guide to Lexicography, Sterkenburg 2003, pp. 3–4
7. ^ A Practical Guide to Lexicography, Sterkenburg 2003, p. 7
8. ISBN 978-0-415-25366-6
   .
9. ^ "DCCLT – Digital Corpus of Cuneiform Lexical Texts". oracc.museum.upenn.edu. Archived from the original on 2022-04-01. Retrieved 2022-03-01.
10. ^ ^{a b} Dictionary – MSN Encarta. Archived from the original on 2009-10-29.
11. ISBN 978-1-350-18172-4
    .
12. S2CID 162304317
    .
13. ^ Sellheim, R., "al-K̲h̲alīl b. Aḥmad", in: Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition, Edited by: P. Bearman, Th. Bianquis, C.E. Bosworth, E. van Donzel, W.P. Heinrichs. Consulted online on 04 June 2023
14. ^ Besim Atalay, Divanü Lügat-it Türk Dizini, TTK Basımevi, Ankara, 1986
15. ^ Zeki Velidi Togan, Zimahşeri'nin Doğu Türkçesi İle Mukaddimetül Edeb'i
16. ^ Ahmet Caferoğlu, Kitab Al Idrak Li Lisan Al Atrak, 1931
17. ^ Bahşāyiş Bin Çalıça, Bahşayiş Lügati: Hazırlayan: Fikret TURAN, Ankara 2017,
18. ^ Rashid, Omar. "Chasing Khusro". The Hindu. Archived from the original on 25 September 2019. Retrieved 5 August 2012.
19. ^ "Ḳāmūs", J. Eckmann, Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd ed., Brill
20. ^ Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española, edición integral e ilustrada de Ignacio Arellano y Rafael Zafra, Madrid, Iberoamericana-Vervuert, 2006, pg. XLIX.
21. ^ "OSA – Om svar anhålles". g3.spraakdata.gu.se. Archived from the original on 2 March 2013. Retrieved 13 October 2017.
22. ^ Mark Forsyth. The etymologicon. // Icon Books Ltd. London N79DP, 2011. p. 128
23. ^ "1582 – Mulcaster's Elementarie". www.bl.uk. Archived from the original on 11 October 2017. Retrieved 13 October 2017.
24. ^ A Brief History of English Lexicography Archived 2008-03-09 at the Wayback Machine, Peter Erdmann and See-Young Cho, Technische Universität Berlin, 1999.
25. ^ Jack Lynch, "How Johnson's Dictionary Became the First Dictionary" (delivered 25 August 2005 at the Johnson and the English Language conference, Birmingham) Archived 29 August 2019 at the Wayback Machine Retrieved July 12, 2008,
26. ISBN 978-0-521-88674-1
    . Retrieved 16 May 2016.
27. ^ ^{a b} "Lynch, "How Johnson's Dictionary Became the First Dictionary"". andromeda.rutgers.edu. Archived from the original on 6 June 2011. Retrieved 13 October 2017.
28. ^ Simon Winchester, The Surgeon of Crowthorne.
29. ^ "Language Core Reference Sources – Texas State Library". Archived from the original on 2010-04-25. Retrieved 2010-08-22.
30. ^ Times, The Sindh (24 February 2015). "The first English to Einglish and Sindhi Dictionary of Computer and Internet Terms published – The Sindh Times". Archived from the original on 11 October 2017. Retrieved 13 October 2017.
31. ISBN 9780203205716
    .
32. ISBN 9783039116607
    .
33. ^ Ned Halley, The Wordsworth Dictionary of Modern English Grammar (2005), p. 84
34. ^ Zuckermann, Ghil'ad (1999). Review of the Oxford English-Hebrew Dictionary Archived 2016-10-11 at the Wayback Machine, International Journal of Lexicography 12.4, pp. 325-346.
35. ^ See for example Toyin Falola, et al. Historical dictionary of Nigeria (Rowman & Littlefield, 2018) excerpt Archived 2022-04-01 at the Wayback Machine
36. ^ Imad Zeroual, and Abdelhak Lakhouaja, "Data science in light of natural language processing: An overview." Procedia Computer Science 127 (2018): 82-91 online Archived 2022-02-22 at the Wayback Machine.
37. ^ "dictionary". The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (5th ed.). HarperCollins.
38. ^ Skinner, David (May 17, 2013). "The Role of a Dictionary". Opinionator. The New York Times. Archived from the original on 2013-05-18. Retrieved 2020-08-13.

References

• ISBN 90-272-1612-6
  .
• Erdmann, Peter; Cho, See-Young. "A Brief History of English Lexicography". Technische Universität Berlin. Archived from the original on 9 March 2008. Retrieved 17 December 2010.
• ISBN 0-521-78040-3
  .
• ISBN 3-8233-4533-8
  .
• Nielsen, Sandro (2008). "The Effect of Lexicographical Information Costs on Dictionary Making and Use". Lexikos. 18: 170–189.
  ISSN 1684-4904
  .
• Atkins, B.T.S. & Rundell, Michael (2008) The Oxford Guide to Practical Lexicography, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  ISBN 978-0-19-927771-1
• ISBN 0-06-099486-X
  . (published in the UK as The Surgeon of Crowthorne).
• P. G. J. van Sterkenburg, ed. (2003). A practical guide to lexicography. John Benjamins Publishing Company.
  ISBN 978-1-58811-381-8
  .

Further reading

• Guy Jean Forgue, "The Norm in American English", Revue Française d'Etudes Americaines, Nov 1983, Vol. 8 Issue 18, pp. 451–461. An international appreciation of the importance of Webster's dictionaries in setting the norms of the English language.

External links

Look up dictionary or wordbook in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.