ENGLISH LEXICOGRAPHY

Lexicography is the theory and practice of compiling dictionaries. It is the oldest part of lexicology.

In Lexicology,word is a part of the system.

In Lexicography,word is an individual unit in respect of its meaning and use from the practical point of its use by the reader of the dictionary for learning the language or comprehending texts in it or for any other purpose. The lexicographers are mostly guided by the principle of convenience in retrieval of the data and arrange words usually in alphabetical order.

Dictionary is a book that lists the words of a language in a certain order (usually alphabetical) and gives their meanings or equivalent words in a different language.

Latin forms ‘dictionaries’ or ‘dictionarium’, from ‘dictio’ ‘action of saying’ or ‘word’, itself from the verb ‘dicere’, ‘say’.

According to the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) ‘dictonarius’ was used for the first time in 1225 by the poet and grammarian Joannes de Garlandia, or John of Garland(e) (1195 - 1272).

OLD ENGLISH PERIOD

600-700 ADglosses of religious booksthe Leiden Glossarythe Epinal Glossarythe Erfurt Glossarythe Corpus Glossary (Corpus Christi College, Cambridge)

OLD ENGLISH GLOSSARIES

https://archive.org/details/corpuspinalerf00lindiala

The Leiden Glossary is a collection of smaller glossaries (sets of glosses) under the name of the treatise from which it was extracted. The words are in the order in which they happened to come in the treatise without any further.

The Epinal Glossary has advanced to first-letter order: all the A-words come together, followed by all the B-words and so on to Z.

In the Epinal Glossary there were only a few English words, in the Corpus Glossary their number increased.

AELFRIC´S GLOSSARY, 1000 AD

Aelfric, abbot of Eynsham monastery near Oxford, compiled a glossary that was ordered thematically. It was a list of Latin words, with Old English equivalents with such topics as ‘God, heaven, angels, sun, moon, earth, sea, herbs, trees, weapons, metals, precious stones’.

15TH CENTURY

Six important vocabularies of the fifteenth century are printed by Wright-Wuelcker, most of them arranged under subject headings.

About the middle of the century, also, was compiled the famous Medulla Grammatice, designated as ‘the first Latin-English dictionary’.

Medulla Grammatice or Medulla Grammaticae ("the Marrow of Grammar") is collection of fifteenth century Latin-Middle English glossaries in the British Museum.

The English Dictionary, like the English Constitution, is the creation of no one man, and of no one age; it is a growth that has slowly developed itself down the ages. Its beginnings lie far back in times almost prehistoric. And these beginnings themselves, although the English Dictionary of to-day is lineally developed from them, were neither Dictionaries, nor even English. As to their language, they were in the first place and principally Latin: as to their substance, they consisted, in large part at least, of glosses. They were Latin, because at the time to which we refer, the seventh and eighth centuries of our era, Latin was in Western Europe the only language of books, the learning of Latin the portal to all learning

James Murray

THE FIRST ENGLISH MONOLINGUAL DICTIONARIES

Robert Cawdrey A Table Alphabetical of Hard Usuall English Wordes (1604)

John Bullokar An English Expositor(1616)

Henry Cockeram English Dictionarie (1623)

18TH CENTURYA New English Dictionary by John Kersey (1702).

The lexicon included 28,000 entries of general

vocabulary.

Nathaniel Bailey’s An Universal Etymological Dictionary of 172140,000 headwords of everyday general vocabulary, unusual words and etymology.

SAMUEL JOHNSON’S DICTIONARY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE OF 1755. the landmark in establishing the role of lexicographer as an authority on the correct spelling, pronunciation and definitions

114,000 citations to prove definitions, connotations; commentaries if he doubted the usage

a corpus of authentic literary texts by the best, reputable authors

the meaning of the words in chronological order, from the literal to the figurative, metaphorical, stylistic meaning

A NEW ENGLISH DICTIONARY ON HISTORICAL PRINCIPLES”(NED)

In 1858, one of the members of the English philological society Dr. Trench raised the question of compiling such a dictionary, which would include all the words existing in the English language, irrespective of their style. The first volume was published in 1884, the last one - in 1928. A supplement appeared in 1933. The dictionary was called “A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles” (NED) and consisted of twelve volumes. About one thousand people took part in collecting the material for it. In 1933, it was republished under the title “The Oxford English Dictionary” and consisted of thirteen volumes.

THE OXFORD ENGLISH DICTIONARY (OED)

The title The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) was first used unofficially on the covers of the series/In 1933, the title The Oxford English Dictionary fully replaced the former name in all occurrences in its reprinting as twelve volumes with a one-volume supplement. Since 2000, a third edition of the dictionary has been underway, approximately a third of which is now complete.The first electronic version of the dictionary was made available in 1988. The online version has been available since 2000, and as of April 2014 was receiving over two million hits per month. The third edition of the dictionary will probably only appear in electronic form; Nigel Portwood, chief executive of Oxford University Press, feels it unlikely that it will ever be printed.

LONGMAN DICTIONARY OF CONTEMPORARY ENGLISH (LDOCE)Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English (LDOCE) was first published by Longman in 1978. The latest version of Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English is the sixth edition. The premium website was revised during 2014 and 2015 and offers over a million corpus examples, exceeding that of the paper version and also supplying sound files for every word and 88,000 example sentences, along with various tools for study, teaching, examinations and grammar. The gratis LDOCE online was updated to its current layout in 2008 and offers a search (with spelling assistance), definitions; collocations; many examples and pictures.

CAMBRIDGE DICTIONARIES

Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary was first published in 1995 under the name Cambridge International Dictionary of English, by the Cambridge University Press. The dictionary has over 140,000 words, phrases, and meanings. It is suitable for learners at CEF levels B2-C2.First edition first published in 2003Second edition first published in 2005Third edition first published in 2008Fourth edition first published in 2013

ENGLISH LEXICOGRAPHY

Elena KruglikovaSiberian Federal University,

Krasnoyarske-mail: ekruglikova@sfu-kras.ru