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The Beginning of Dictionary Making in Britain

By Mari.Chuchaeva
  • 1995 BCE

    'lexicographic year'

    three new editions of English learner's dictionaries (OALD 5, LDCE 3 and COBUILD 2) and two new dictionaries — "Cambridge International Dictionary of English" (CIDE)
    and "Harrap'Essential English Dictionary"(HEED)
  • 1978 BCE

    "Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English"

    "Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English"
    the leading dictionary for learners of English of all levels: definitions, idioms, examples and more.
  • 1942 BCE

    "Idiomatic and Syntactic English Dictionary"

    "Idiomatic and Syntactic English Dictionary"
    In 1942 in Japan A.S.Homby, E.V.Gatenby and H.Wakefield published the "Idiomatic and Syntactic English Dictionary" (Tokyo: Kaitakusha) which was later retitled "Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary of Current English" (OALD) and became the most
    authoritative reference book for foreign learners of English all over the world.
  • 1935 BCE

    "New Method English Dictionary"

    "New Method English Dictionary"
    The first monolingual dictionary of English for foreign learners was compiled by M.West and J.G.Endicott in 1935
    The dictionary had about 30,000 entries. The compilers made a successful attempt to define these words with the help of a vocabulary consisting of only 1,490 words. This facilitated the use of the dictionary by a foreigner with limited knowledge of English.
  • Period: 1930 BCE to 2000 BCE

    LEARNERS' MONOLINGUAL DICTIONARIES

    The development of the learner's lexicography in Great Britain goes back to the 1930s.
  • 1888 BCE

    "Oxford English Dictionary"

    "Oxford English Dictionary"
    originally called the "New English Dictionary"
    The OED is the most comprehensive and authoritative dictionary of the English language. It was compiled by the English Philological Society.The dictionary registers different spellings of the word, its etymology, modern pronunciation, grammatical information and the account of usage over the period of the word existence.
  • 1828 BCE

    "American Dictionary of the English Language"

    "American Dictionary of the English Language"
    Noah Webster's dictionary contained many Americanisms, that is words borrowed from Indian languages and Spanish which became part of the American variant of English in the 19th century.
  • 1730 BCE

    "Dictionarium Britanicum" by Nathaniel Bailey

    "Dictionarium Britanicum" by Nathaniel Bailey
    Nathaniel Bailey made a few lexicographic
    innovations: he was the first to indicate the stressed syllable in head-words and to use sayings and proverbs in order to make the senses more explicit.
  • 1721 BCE

    "An Universal Etymological English Dictionary" by Nathaniel Bailey

    "An Universal Etymological English Dictionary" by Nathaniel Bailey
    The first attempt at a dictionary whose word-list comprised words of different degrees of complexity, both native and non-native was made by Nathaniel Bailey
  • 1604 BCE

    "A Table Alphabeticall"

    "A Table Alphabeticall"
    The first monolingual dictionary of English by Robert Cawdrey.
    His dictionary contained about 2,500 words. He was careful to explain the alphabetical order to his readers, which even the most literate of his readers would not know or expect
  • Period: 1604 BCE to 1928 BCE

    Monolingual Lexicography

    Dictionaries of hard words dominated in the 17th century and gradually they became fairly sophisticated reference book which could be written only by professionals.
  • 1600 BCE

    bilingual and polylingual dictionaries

    bilingual and polylingual dictionaries
    By the middle of the 16th century Latin began to lose its status of
    an international language and English lexicographers turned to new West-European languages.
    "A World of Words, or Most copious, and exact Dictionarie in Italian and English" by John Florio (1598)
    "A Dictionarie French and English" by Claudius Hollyband (1593),
  • 1500 BCE

    "Medulla Gramatice"

    the first Latin-English dictionary.
    It was necessary to make regular Latin-English dictionaries which would not be confined to "hard" Latin words in a particular text but include as many Latin-English equivalents as possible.
  • 1500 BCE

    "Ortus (Hortus) Voca-bulorum"

    Later on "Medulla Gramatice" served the basis for the first printed bilingual dictionary "Ortus (Hortus) Voca-bulorum"
  • Period: 601 BCE to 1538 BCE

    The Beginning of Dictionary Making in Britain

    The historical roots of British lexicography go back to 7th-8th centuries when Latin was a means of international communication in Europe.and the most important texts were written in this language. To facilitate their reading and translation English monks produced glosses based on interlinear translations from Latin.
  • 600 BCE

    "Leiden Glossary"

    "Leiden Glossary"
    One of the first glossaries is the "Leiden Glossary" in which the
    pairs of equivalents are arranged in the order of their occurrence in the text.