A dictionary records a language and a cultural world. This global history of lexicography is the first survey of all the dictionaries which humans have made, from the ancient civilizations of Mesopotamia, Egypt, China, India, and the Greco-Roman world, to the contemporary speech communities of every inhabited continent. Their makers included poets and soldiers, saints and courtiers, a scribe in an ancient Egyptian 'house of life' and a Vietnamese queen. Their physical forms include Tamil palm-leaf manuscripts and the dictionary apps which are supporting endangered Australian languages. Through engaging and accessible studies, a diverse team of leading scholars provide fascinating insight into the dictionaries of hundreds of languages, into the imaginative worlds of those who used or observed them, and into a dazzling variety of the literate cultures of humankind.
Edited by:
John Considine (University of Alberta)
Imprint: Cambridge University Press
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions:
Height: 229mm,
Width: 152mm,
Spine: 50mm
Weight: 1.400kg
ISBN: 9781316631119
ISBN 10: 1316631117
Pages: 973
Publication Date: 01 July 2021
Audience:
Professional and scholarly
,
Undergraduate
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active
Part I. The Ancient World: 1. Ancient Mesopotamia Niek Veldhuis; 2. Ancient and Coptic Egypt Frank Feder; 3. Ancient China Françoise Bottéro; 4. Ancient India Lata Mahesh Deokar and Jean-Luc Chevillard; 5. The Greco-Roman world Rolando Ferri; Part II. The Pre-Modern World: 6. China c.600–c.1700 Nathan Vedal; 7. India and Tibet, c.500–c.1750 Lata Mahesh Deokar and Jean-Luc Chevillard; 8. Arabic to c.1800 Ramzi Baalbaki; 9. Hebrew to c.1650 Aharon Maman; 10. The Chinese periphery to c.1800 Mårten Söderblom Saarela; 11. The Turkic languages and Persian to c.1700 Marek Stachowski; 12. Byzantine Greek Stefano Valente; 13. Medieval Latin Christendom John Considine; 14. Early modern Western and Central Europe John Considine; Part III. The Modern World: Continuing Traditions: 15. China from c.1700 Henning Klöter; 16. Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese from c.1800 David Lurie, Heokseung Kwon and John D. Phan; 17. Turkish and Persian from c.1700 Luciano Rocchi and Arthur Dudney; 18. South Asia from c.1750 Walter Hakala and Lisa Mitchell; 19. Arabic from c.1800 Jan Hoogland; 20. Modern Hebrew Tsvi Sadan; 21. The Slavic and Baltic languages Rick Derksen; 22. The Germanic languages other than English from c.1700 Ulrike Haß; 23. Standard varieties of English from c.1700 Charlotte Brewer; 24. Regional varieties of English Michael Adams; 25. The Romance languages from c.1700 Pascale Renders; Part IV. The Modern World: Missionary and Subsequent Traditions: 26. Missionary traditions in South America Otto Zwartjes; 27. Missionary traditions in Mesoamerica Otto Zwartjes; 28. Missionary and subsequent traditions in North America Willem de Reuse; 29. Missionary traditions in East Asia Otto Zwartjes; 30. European traditions in India and Indonesia Toon Van Hal; 31. Missionary and subsequent traditions in Africa Gonçalo Fernandes; 32. Missionary and other traditions in Australia William B. McGregor.
John Considine is Professor of English at the University of Alberta. He is the author of Dictionaries in Early Modern Europe: Lexicography and the Making of Heritage (Cambridge, 2008), Academy Dictionaries 1600–1800 (Cambridge, 2014), and Small Dictionaries and Curiosity: Lexicography and Fieldwork in Post-Medieval Europe (2017); he has edited or co-edited six other books on lexicography. He has contributed to the Oxford English Dictionary for the last thirty years, formerly as library researcher and as assistant editor, and now as a consultant.
