A broad distinction is made betweengeneral andspecialized dictionaries. Specialized dictionaries include words in specialist fields, rather than a comprehensive range of words in the language. Lexical items that describe concepts in specific fields are usually called terms instead of words, although there is no consensus whetherlexicology andterminology are two different fields of study.[citation needed] In theory, general dictionaries are supposed[citation needed] to besemasiological, mapping word todefinition, while specialized dictionaries are supposed to beonomasiological, first identifyingconcepts and then establishing the terms used to designate them. In practice, the two approaches are used for both types.[5] There are other types of dictionaries that do not fit neatly into the above distinction, for instancebilingual (translation) dictionaries, dictionaries ofsynonyms (thesauri), andrhyming dictionaries. The word dictionary (unqualified) is usually understood to refer to a general purposemonolingual dictionary.[6]
There is also a contrast betweenprescriptive ordescriptive dictionaries; the former reflect what is seen as correct use of the language while the latter reflect recorded actual use. Stylistic indications (e.g. "informal" or "vulgar") in many modern dictionaries are also considered by some to be less than objectively descriptive.[7]
The first recorded dictionaries date back toSumerian times around 2300 BCE, in the form of bilingual dictionaries, and the oldest surviving monolingual dictionaries areChinese dictionariesc. 3rd century BCE. The first purely English alphabetical dictionary wasA 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, calledlexicography, and largely initiated byLadislav 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
Catalan-Latin dictionary from the year 1696 with more than 1000 pages. Gazophylacium Dictionary.
The French-languagePetit Larousse is an example of an illustrated dictionary.
Arabic dictionaries were compiled between the 8th and 14th centuries, organizing words in rhyme order (by the last syllable), by alphabetical order of theradicals, or according to the alphabetical order of the first letter (the system used in modern European language dictionaries). The modern system was mainly used in specialist dictionaries, such as those of terms from theQur'an andhadith, while most general use dictionaries, such as theLisan al-`Arab (13th century, still the best-known large-scale dictionary of Arabic) andal-Qamus al-Muhit (14th century) listed words in the alphabetical order of the radicals. TheQamus al-Muhit is the first handy dictionary in Arabic, which includes only words and their definitions, eliminating the supporting examples used in such dictionaries as theLisan and theOxford English Dictionary.[19]
In medieval Europe,glossaries with equivalents for Latin words invernacular or simpler Latin were in use (e.g. theLeiden Glossary). TheCatholicon (1287) byJohannes Balbus, a large grammatical work with an alphabetical lexicon, was widely adopted. It served as the basis for several bilingual dictionaries and was one of the earliest books (in 1460) to be printed. In 1502Ambrogio Calepino'sDictionarium was published, originally a monolingual Latin dictionary, which over the course of the 16th century was enlarged to become a multilingual glossary. In 1532Robert Estienne published theThesaurus linguae latinae and in 1572 his sonHenri Estienne published theThesaurus linguae graecae, which served up to the 19th century as the basis of Greek lexicography. The first monolingual Spanish dictionary written wasSebastián Covarrubias'sTesoro de la lengua castellana o española, published in 1611 in Madrid, Spain.[20] In 1612 the first edition of theVocabolario degli Accademici della Crusca, forItalian, was published. It served as the model for similar works in French and English. In 1690 inRotterdam was published, posthumously, theDictionnaire Universel byAntoine Furetière forFrench. In 1694 appeared the first edition of theDictionnaire de l'Académie française (still published, with the ninth edition not complete as of 2021[update]). Between 1712 and 1721 was published theVocabulario portughez e latino written by Raphael Bluteau. TheRoyal Spanish Academy published the first edition of theDiccionario de la lengua española (still published, with a new edition about every decade) in 1780; theirDiccionario de Autoridades, which included quotes taken from literary works, was published in 1726. TheTotius Latinitatis lexicon byEgidio Forcellini was firstly published in 1777; it has formed the basis of all similar works that have since been published.
The first purely English alphabetical dictionary wasA Table Alphabeticall, written by English schoolteacherRobert Cawdrey in 1604.[2][3] The only surviving copy is found at theBodleian Library inOxford. 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 byThomas Blount, published in 1656, contains more than 10,000 words along with their etymologies or histories.Edward Phillips wrote another dictionary in 1658, entitled "The New World of English Words: Or a General Dictionary" which boldlyplagiarized Blount's work, and the two criticized each other. This created more interest in the dictionaries.John Wilkins' 1668essay on philosophical language contains a list of 11,500 words with careful distinctions, compiled byWilliam Lloyd.[26]Elisha Coles published his "English Dictionary" in 1676.
It was not untilSamuel Johnson'sA 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 theOxford University Press began writing and releasing theOxford English Dictionary in shortfascicles from 1884 onwards.[3] A complete ten-volume first edition[28] was not released until 1928.[29]
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, AmericanNoah 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, includingOld English (Anglo-Saxon), German, Greek, Latin, Italian, Spanish, French, Hebrew, Arabic, andSanskrit.
Webster completed his dictionary during his year abroad in 1825 in Paris, France, and at theUniversity of Cambridge. His book contained seventy thousand words, of which twelve thousand had never appeared in a published dictionary before. As aspelling reformer, Webster believed that English spelling rules were unnecessarily complex, so his dictionary introduced spellings that becameAmerican English, replacing "colour" with "color", substituting "wagon" for "waggon", and printing "center" instead of "centre". He also added American words, like "skunk" and "squash", which did not appear in British dictionaries. At the age of seventy, Webster published his dictionary in 1828; it sold 2500 copies. In 1840, the second edition was published in two volumes. Webster's dictionary was acquired by G & C Merriam Co. in 1843, after his death, and has since been published in many revised editions.Merriam-Webster was acquired byEncyclopedia Britannica in 1964.
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.[30]
Another variant is theglossary, an alphabetical list of defined terms in a specialized field, such as medicine (medical dictionary).
Defining dictionaries
The simplest dictionary, adefining dictionary, provides acore glossary of the simplest meanings of the simplest concepts. From these, other concepts can be explained and defined, in particular for those who are first learning a language. In English, the commercial defining dictionaries typically include only one or two meanings of under 2000 words. With these, the rest of English, and even the 4000 most common Englishidioms andmetaphors, can be defined.
Prescriptive vs. descriptive
Lexicographers apply two basic philosophies to the defining of words:prescriptive ordescriptive.Noah Webster, intent on forging a distinct identity for the American language, altered spellings and accentuated differences in meaning and pronunciation of some words. This is whyAmerican English now uses the spellingcolor while the rest of the English-speaking world preferscolour. (Similarly,British English subsequently underwent a few spelling changes that did not affect American English; see further atAmerican and British English spelling differences.)[32]
Large 20th-century dictionaries such as theOxford English Dictionary (OED) andWebster's Third are descriptive, and attempt to describe the actual use of words. Most dictionaries of English now apply the descriptive method to a word's definition, and then, outside of the definition itself, provide information alerting readers to attitudes which may influence their choices on words often considered vulgar, offensive, erroneous, or easily confused.[33]Merriam-Webster is subtle, only adding italicized notations such as,sometimes offensive orstand (nonstandard).American Heritage goes further, discussing issues separately in numerous "usage notes."Encarta provides similar notes, but is more prescriptive, offering warnings and admonitions against the use of certain words considered by many to be offensive or illiterate, such as, "an offensive term for..." or "a taboo term meaning...".
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.[34] AsJorge 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 toGhil'ad Zuckermann, theOxford English-Hebrew Dictionary is "at war with itself": whereas its coverage (lexical items) and glosses (definitions) are descriptive and colloquial, itsvocalization is prescriptive. This internal conflict results in absurd sentences such ashi taharóg otí kshetiré me asíti lamkhonít (she'll tear me apart when she sees what I've done to the car). Whereashi taharóg otí, literally 'she will kill me', is colloquial,me (a variant ofma 'what') is archaic, resulting in a combination that is unutterable in real life.[35]
Historical dictionaries
Ahistorical 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.[36]
In contrast to traditional dictionaries, which are designed to be used by human beings, dictionaries fornatural language processing (NLP) are built to be used by computer programs. The final user is a human being but the direct user is a program. Such a dictionary does not need to be able to be printed on paper. The structure of the content is not linear, ordered entry by entry but has the form of a complex network (seeDiathesis alternation). Because most of these dictionaries are used to controlmachine translations orcross-lingual information retrieval (CLIR) the content is usually multilingual and usually of huge size. In order to allow formalized exchange and merging of dictionaries, an ISO standard calledLexical Markup Framework (LMF) has been defined and used among the industrial and academic community.[37]
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 worddictionary might be followed by theInternational Phonetic Alphabet spelling/ˈdɪkʃənəri/ (in British English) or/ˈdɪkʃənɛri/ (in American English). American English dictionaries often use their ownpronunciation respelling systems withdiacritics, for exampledictionary is respelled as "dĭk′shə-nĕr′ē" in theAmerican Heritage Dictionary.[38] 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 asDIK-shə-nər-ee orDIK-shə-nerr-ee on Wikipedia. Some online or electronic dictionaries provide audio recordings of words being spoken.
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 areholistic, pragmatic, caveat, esoteric andbourgeois. Teaching users about words they don't already know has been, historically, an aim of lexicography, and modern dictionaries do this well."[39]
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 ofneologisms. Some of the more notable examples are given inList of online dictionaries andCategory:Online dictionaries.
^Peter Bing (2003). "The unruly tongue: Philitas of Cos as scholar and poet".Classical Philology.98 (4):330–348.doi:10.1086/422370.S2CID162304317.
^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 4 June 2023
^Besim Atalay, Divanü Lügat-it Türk Dizini, TTK Basımevi, Ankara, 1986
^Zeki Velidi Togan, Zimahşeri'nin Doğu Türkçesi İle Mukaddimetül Edeb'i
^Ahmet Caferoğlu, Kitab Al Idrak Li Lisan Al Atrak, 1931
^Bahşāyiş Bin Çalıça, Bahşayiş Lügati: Hazırlayan: Fikret TURAN, Ankara 2017,
^Rashid, Omar."Chasing Khusro".The Hindu.Archived from the original on 25 September 2019. Retrieved5 August 2012.
^"Ḳāmūs", J. Eckmann,Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd ed., Brill
^Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española, edición integral e ilustrada de Ignacio Arellano y Rafael Zafra, Madrid, Iberoamericana-Vervuert, 2006, pg. XLIX.
^See for example Toyin Falola, et al.Historical dictionary of Nigeria (Rowman & Littlefield, 2018)excerptArchived 1 April 2022 at theWayback Machine
^Imad Zeroual, and Abdelhak Lakhouaja, "Data science in light of natural language processing: An overview."Procedia Computer Science 127 (2018): 82-91onlineArchived 22 February 2022 at theWayback Machine.
Bergenholtz, Henning; Tarp, Sven, eds. (1995).Manual of Specialised Lexicography: The Preparation of Specialised Dictionaries. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing.ISBN90-272-1612-6.
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