After the last article's cliff hanger, here's a taste of part two--how the dictionary came to be and how it brought law and order to an out of control language.
The Development Of The Dictionary
We’ve gone over just how writing and words came about, but naturally, because of the expansion of humans as a species, the number of words unsurprisingly grew along with us. With every new tribe, empire, and era came a whole host of new things to name. In part one, we looked at the beginnings of the written word. In the many years since its introduction, the written word only continued to grow as it found more and more uses as time went on. New words, rules, and ways to use them were constantly being added to written language. And with this human trait of documenting and keeping track of things, there came the inevitable point where it seemed a good idea to collate these wild and unruly words and bring them into some semblance of order. As a result, we got something that has become a staple of our existence ever since… the English dictionary. But just how did it come about?
To be clear, the English dictionary isn’t the first dictionary, there are instances of dictionaries from Sumerian times, with the oldest surviving being a Chinese one from the 3rd century BCE. However, the foundations for the language we have today in the Oxford English Dictionary were laid over 400 years ago, all thanks to a school teacher named Robert Cawdrey.
Teachers Have All The Good Ideas
During the Renaissance period, there were by now a lot of words floating about, with even more so flooding in over the 16th century (Many the result of a certain playwright by the name of William Shakespeare). With such limited communication, there was little way to convey meaning over distance. Even nowadays, there are region-specific terms for things that persist—depending on where you are you might ask for anything from a chip cob or a chip roll in your local chippy. Back then it was much bigger problem, as any number of words could have regional variations, as well as new words entirely unknown to large parts of the country.
Robert Cawdrey was quite concerned by this and took it upon himself to do something about it. He set out to prevent people from becoming confused and remind the wealthy of their mother tongue, as they were adopting foreign words and phrases. Cawdrey set out to create a guide to explain the plethora of new English words derived from the Hebrew, Greek, Latin and French that were fast absorbing into the language.
His work produced the first dictionary, the Table Alphabeticall. Or to give it its full title:
A table alphabeticall, containing and teaching the true writing, and understanding of hard vsuall English wordes, borrowed from the Hebrew, Greeke, Latine, or French, &c. With the interpretation thereof by plaine English words, gathered for the benefit & helpe of ladies, gentlewomen, or any other unskilfull persons. Whereby they may the more easilie and better vnderstand many hard English wordes, vvhich they shall heare or read in scriptures, sermons, or elswhere, and also be made able to vse the same aptly themselues.
Bit of a mouthful, isn’t it?
His ‘dictionary’ ended up with 2,543 words, each with a definition that helped explain the life and development of the language at the time. It’s proven to be such an insightful tool for understanding the language of the period that it’s back in circulation today. There were just two problems with Cawdrey’s work: the first was that it focused purely on the more awkward and difficult words. The second was that he refrained from calling it a dictionary. As such, he has been largely overlooked by history. Several others tried to better Cawdrey’s effort, such as Nathan Bailey in 1721. But it was Samuel Johnson who is credited with being the creator of the first dictionary in 1755, some 150 years after Cawdrey’s Table.
To find out just how we ended up with the Oxford English Dictionary, read on here. And stick around this week for the conclusion to this sweeping trip through history. It's like Back To The Future, but with less DeLoreans.
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