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The Beginnings of English Lexicography

2003; Volume: 24; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1353/dic.2003.0010

2160-5076

Allen Walker Read,

Spanish Linguistics and Language Studies

The Beginnings of English Lexicography1 D; Allen Walker Read i uring the present century, a number of important surveys have been made of the origins of English dictionaries, such as those by James A. H. Murray (1900), Percy W Long (1909), Mitford Mathews in (1933), Starnes and Noyes (1946), James Root Hulbert (1955), and Ronald A. Wells (1973). Each surveyor had a set of influences that he tended to emphasize. Murray, for instance, made an interesting tale of the glossing of manuscripts in medieval monasteries , but Long and Hulbert have both denied diat there could be a historical connection.2 In my own thinking, I have concluded that English lexicography has derived its character from a number of sources, six of which I will deal with in this paper. The purely English dictionary, in the Coote-Cawdrey-Bullokar-Cockeram tradition, arose as a "schoolmaster 's help" (with or without an actual schoolmaster), and I regard this '[The circumstances of the article printed here, and the editorial principles by which it was prepared for publication, are explained in the "Editorial" at the front of this volume.] 2[The 1935 version of Read's paper began with the following paragraph: "Dictionaries develop very late in the history of a language. The forms of a language are set and its vocabulary expands to wide limits even before writing is felt to be a necessity. The give and take of conversation and the prosecution of daily affairs provide that each new generation will carry on a people's speech. Anyone, therefore, who attempts to catch speech and to imprison it in books must have some special motives that arise from his time and situation. Since stricdy English dictionaries are first heard of in the sixteenth century, we must turn to that period in seeking the beginnings of English lexicography."] Dictionaries:Journal oftheDictionary Society ofNorth America 24 (2003) 188Allen Walker Read as the main stream of development. The other streams of influence that converged to produce the English dictionary are as follows: (2)The model of the dictionaries of the classical languages; (3)Glosses and interlingual dictionaries; (4)The impulse from the scientific study of language; (5)The antiquarian and etymological dictionaries; (6)The specialists' dictionaries. I will now take up what I consider the main stream. The first known English-English glossary grew out of the desire of the supporters of the Reformation that even die most humble Englishman should be able to understand the Scriptures. William Tyndale, when he printed the Pentateuch on the Continent in 1530, included "A table expoundinge certeyne wordes." The following entries are typical: Albe, a longe garment of white lynen. Arcke/a shippe made flatte as it were a chest or a cofer. Bisse: fyne whyte/whether it be silke or linen. Boothe, an housse made of bowes. Bresdappe or brestflappe, is soche a flappe as thou seist in the brest of a cope. Bruterar, prophesiers or sothsayers. Consecrate, to apoynte a thinge to holy uses. Dedicate, purifie or sanctifie. Eden: pleasure Emims, a kinde of gea_tes so called be cause they were terreble and cruell for emim signifieth terrebleness. Ephod, is a garment somwhat like an amyce, saue the armes come thorow äd it was gird to. Firmament: the skyes. Polute, defyle. Rocke, God is called a rocke, because both he äd his worde lasteth euer. Slyme was their morter. xi.Chapter/And slyme pittes. xiiij chapter: slyme was a fattenesse that osed out the erth lyke unto tarre/And thou mayst call it cement/if thou wilt. Tabernacle, an house made tentwise, or as a pauelion. Vapor/a dewymiste/as the smoke of a sethynge pott. His reasons for supplying the "Table" are apparent in his "Apologe shewinge the use of the scripture," as follows: Though a man had a precious iuell and a rich/yet if he wiste not the value therof nor wherfore it served/he were nother the better nor rycher of a straw. Even so though we read the The Beginnings of English Lexicography189 scripture & bable of it never so moch/yet if we know not the use of it/and wherfore it was geven/and what is therein to be sought/it...