Introduction

The earliest dictionaries in the English language were glossaries of French, Spanish or Latin words together with their definitions in English. The word “dictionary” was invented by an Englishman called John of Garland in 1220 – he had written a book (called Dictionarius) to help with Latin “diction“.

The three main types are monolingual, bilingual, and bilingualised. There are also thesauruses, which are not dictionaries but are closely related. A monolingual dictionary gives definitions of words in a single language.^[1]

Is a Dictionary the same as an Encyclopaedia?

Dictionary and Encyclopaedia are two words that often confuse people regarding usage and meanings. The main difference is that a Dictionary is a lexicon containing meanings and, possibly, the usage of words, whereas an Encyclopaedia is an information bank. However, US dictionaries tend to be encyclopaedic; Usually, British dictionaries exclude extralinguistic information from entries^[2].

The website^[3] of the Central Institute of Indian Languages, in the section dealing with different types of dictionaries, describes an encyclopaedic dictionary as:

‘… a combination of an encyclopaedia and a linguistic dictionary. It also includes items that are generally characteristic of an encyclopaedia in addition to the items of a linguistic dictionary. In the amount of the information and the manner of its presentation, again, it combines the features of both. The bigger dictionaries like The Century Dictionary, The Oxford English Dictionary, Malayalam Lexicon, Tamil Lexicon, Hindi Sabda Sagar etc., are encyclopaedic, but all of them are linguistic dictionaries.’

What is Lexicography?

The answer^[4] to this question is twofold:

• Practical lexicography is the art or craft of compiling, writing and editing dictionaries.
• Theoretical lexicography is the scholarly study of semantic, orthographic, syntagmatic and paradigmatic features of lexemes of the lexicon (vocabulary) of a language, developing theories of dictionary components and structures linking the data in dictionaries, the needs for information by users in specific types of situations, and how users may best access the data incorporated in printed and electronic dictionaries. This is sometimes referred to as ‘metalexicography’.

General lexicography focuses on the design, compilation, use and evaluation of general dictionaries, i.e. dictionaries that describe the language in widespread use. Such a dictionary is usually called a General Dictionary or Language for General Purpose Dictionary (LGP). Specialised lexicography focuses on the design, compilation, use and evaluation of specialised dictionaries, i.e. dictionaries that are devoted to a (relatively restricted) set of linguistic and factual elements of one or more specialist subject fields, e.g. legal lexicography. Such a dictionary is usually called a Specialised Dictionary or Language for specific purposes dictionary, and following Nielsen 1994, specialised dictionaries are either multi-field, single-field or sub-field dictionaries. It is now widely accepted that lexicography is a scholarly discipline in its own right and not a sub-branch of applied linguistics, as the chief object of study in lexicography is the dictionary – for example, Bergenholtz/Nielsen/Tarp 2009^[5].

Specialised dictionaries include words in specialist fields rather than a complete range of words in the language. Specialised dictionaries are supposed to be onomasiological^[6], first identifying concepts and then establishing the terms used to designate them. In practice, the two approaches are used for both types.^[7] Other kinds of dictionaries do not fit neatly into the above distinction, for instance, bilingual (translation) dictionaries, dictionaries of synonyms (thesauri), and rhyming dictionaries. The word dictionary (unqualified) is usually understood to refer to a general-purpose monolingual dictionary.^[8]  Dictionaries are lists of words usually written in alphabetical order so a user can search for a word more easily. For every spoken language, almost always a dictionary has been written for it. The word dictionary itself comes from the Medieval Latin word dictionarium, which means “collection of words or phrases,” the term being first used by John of Garland in 1220 to describe a new form of the Latin vocabulary that had been written and published.^[9]

Practical lexicographic work involves several activities, and the compilation of well-crafted dictionaries requires careful consideration of all or some of the following aspects^[10]:

• profiling the intended users (i.e. linguistic and non-linguistic competencies) and identifying their needs
• defining the communicative and cognitive functions of the dictionary
• selecting and organising the components of the dictionary
• choosing the appropriate structures for presenting the data in the dictionary (i.e. frame structure, distribution structure, macro-structure, micro-structure and cross-reference structure)
• selecting words and affixes for systematisation as entries
• selecting collocations, phrases and examples
• choosing lemma forms for each word or part of a word to be lemmatised^[11]
• defining words
• organising definitions
• specifying pronunciations of words
• labelling definitions and pronunciations for register and dialect, where appropriate
• selecting equivalents in bi- and multi-lingual dictionaries
• translating collocations, phrases and examples in bi- and multilingual dictionaries
• designing the best way in which users can access the data in printed and electronic dictionaries

One important goal of lexicography is to keep the lexicographic information costs incurred by dictionary users as low as possible. Sandro Nielsen (2008)^[12] suggests relevant aspects for lexicographers to consider when making dictionaries, as they all affect the users’ impression and actual use of specific dictionaries.

Dictionaries from the beginning

The ancient civilisations of India, Greece, and Egypt used lexicographic methods similar to the clay tablets of Sumeria to teach their respective languages^[13]:

• The oldest known dictionaries were cuneiform tablets with bilingual Sumerian–Akkadian wordlists, discovered in Ebla (modern Syria) and dated to around 2300 BC, the time of the Akkadian Empire.^[14]
• A Chinese dictionary, the c. 3^rd century BC Erya,^[15] is the earliest surviving monolingual dictionary – some sources cite the Shizhoupian (probably compiled sometime between 700 BC to 200 BC or earlier) as a “dictionary.”
• Around the 4^th century BC, Philitas of Cos (sometimes spelt Philetas) wrote a pioneering vocabulary called Disorderly Words which explained the meanings of rare Homeric and other literary words, words from local dialects, and technical terms.^[16]   
• Around the 1^st century BC, Apollonius the Sophist wrote the oldest surviving Homeric lexicon.^[17]
• In about the 4^th century AD, the first Sanskrit dictionary, the Amarakośa, was written by Amarasimha in verse and listed around 10,000 words.
• According to the Nihon Shoki, the first Japanese dictionary was the long-lost 682 AD Niina glossary of Chinese characters.
• The oldest existing Japanese dictionary, the c. 835 AD Tenrei Banshō Meigi (or Tenrei banshō myōgi), was also a glossary of written Chinese.
• In Frahang-i Pahlavig, Aramaic heterograms are listed together with their translation in the Middle Persian language and phonetic transcription in the Pazend alphabet^[18].
• A 9^th century AD Irish dictionary, Sanas Cormaic, contained etymologies and explanations of over 1,400 Irish words.
• In the 12^th century, the Karakhanid–Turkic scholar Mahmud Kashgari finished his work “Divan-u Lügat’it Türk”, a dictionary about the Turkic dialects, but especially Karakhanid Turkic. His work, containing about 7500 to 8000 words, was written to teach non-Turkic Muslims, especially the Abbasid Arabs, the Turkic language.^[19]
• Al-Zamakhshari wrote a small Arabic dictionary called “Muḳaddimetü’l-edeb” for the Turkic-Khwarazm ruler Atsiz.^[20]  In the 14^th century, the Codex Cumanicus was completed and served as a dictionary about the Cuman-Turkic language. While in Mamluk Egypt, Ebû Hayyân el-Endelüsî finished his work “Kitâbü’l-İdrâk li-lisâni’l-Etrâk”, a dictionary about the Kipchak and Turcoman languages spoken in Egypt and the Levant^.[21]
• A dictionary called “Bahşayiş Lügati”, written in old Anatolian Turkish, served as a dictionary between Oghuz Turkish, Arabic and Persian. It is unclear who wrote it or when it was published. It was written in old Anatolian Turkish from the Seljuk period and not the late medieval Ottoman period.^[22]
• In India around 1320, Amir Khusro compiled the Khaliq-e-bari, which mainly dealt with Hindustani and Persian words.^[23]
• Between the 8^th and 14^th century AD, Arabic dictionaries were compiled, organising words in rhyme order (by the last syllable), by alphabetical order of the radicals, or according to the alphabetical order of the first letter (the system used in modern European language dictionaries). The current system was mainly used in specialist dictionaries, such as those of terms from the Qur’an and hadith, while most general use dictionaries, such as the Lisan al-`Arab (13^th century, still the best-known large-scale dictionary of Arabic) and al-Qamus al-Muhit (14^th century) listed words in the alphabetical order of the radicals. You can see a list (albeit not complete) of Arabic dictionaries at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Arabic_dictionaries
• The Qamus al-Muhit is the first handy dictionary in Arabic, which includes only words and their definitions, eliminating the supporting examples used in such dictionaries as the Lisan and the Oxford English Dictionary.^[24]

In Europe, glossaries with equivalents for Latin words in vernacular or simpler Latin were in use (e.g. the Leiden Glossary):

• The Catholicon (in 1287) by Johannes Balbus, a large grammatical work with an alphabetical lexicon, was widely adopted. It served as the basis for several bilingual dictionaries and was one of the earliest books (in 1460) to be printed.
• In 1502, Ambrogio Calepino‘s Dictionarium was published, originally as a monolingual Latin dictionary, which over the 16^th century, was enlarged to become a multilingual glossary.
• In 1532, Robert Estienne published the Thesaurus linguae latinae and in 1572, his son Henri Estienne published the Thesaurus linguae graecae, which, up to the 19^th century, served as the basis of Greek lexicography.
• The first monolingual Spanish dictionary written was Sebastián Covarrubias‘s Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española, published in 1611 in Madrid, Spain.^[25]
• In 1612, the first edition of the Vocabolario degli Accademici della Crusca, for Italian, was published. It served as the model for similar works in French and English.
• In 1690, in Rotterdam, the Dictionnaire Universel by Antoine Furetière was published posthumously for the French language.
• The year 1694 saw the first edition of the Dictionnaire de l’Académie française (still published, with the ninth edition still not complete as of 2021).
• Between 1712 and 1721, the Vocabulario portughez e latino, written by Raphael Bluteau, was published.
• The Real Academia Española published the first edition in 1780 of the Diccionario de la lengua española (still published, with a new edition about every decade); their Diccionario de Autoridades, which included quotes taken from literary works, was published in 1726. The Totius Latinitatis lexicon by Egidio Forcellini (first published in 1777) has formed the basis of all similar works that have since been published.

Lexicography evolved alongside the languages of ancient civilisations. When civilisations began to interact, the discipline of lexicography expanded to include translations. Over time, dictionaries evolved into the modern authoritative sources for proper spelling, pronunciation, and use of language with which we are now familiar.^[26]

The orderly study of dictionaries is credited to Ladislav Zgussta (sometimes spelt Zgusta), a Czech-American historical linguist and lexicographer, in the 20^th century^[27].

Robert Cawdrey’s ‘Table Alphabeticall’

The British Library notes^[28]  that Robert Cawdrey’s Table Alphabeticall, published in 1604, was the first single-language English dictionary ever published. It lists approximately 3000 words, defining each one with a simple and brief description:

“At this time, the English language was expanding – influenced by trade, travel and new innovations in the fields of arts and sciences. The ‘Table Alphabeticall’ was an attempt to explain ‘hard’ words – i.e. those unfamiliar to the general public. In the preface to the dictionary, Cawdrey criticises the poor standard of English spoken by people at the time: while some simplified their speech ‘so that the most ignorant may well understand them’, others decorated their sentences with fancy phrases and complicated words, ‘forgetting altogether their mother’s language, so that if some of their mothers were alive, they were not able to tell or understand what they say.’ He writes of how ‘far journied gentlemen’ collect words on their travels and, coming home, ‘pouder their talke with over-sea language.’ Cawdrey wanted the English language to be better organised and felt his book might help the reader to understand challenging words.”

The Table Alphabeticall claimed to contain and teach: ‘…the true understanding of hard usual English words, borrowed from Hebrew, Greek, Latin or French.’

The First English Dictionary^[29]

As dictionaries of other languages have evolved, the English dictionary is no exception. The first English dictionaries, written around 1500 AD, acted more like a glossary by providing a longer definition for a word yet omitted to show how words could be used in writing. Later dictionaries published were bilingual – such as the Dictionary of Syr Thomas Eliot Knyght (in 1538) and Dictionarie French and English (in 1593).

Cawdery’s dictionary influenced every major English dictionary written afterwards, including John Bullokar’s English Expositor (in 1616), Thomas Bount’s English Dictionary, and Glassographia (in 1656).

These published works contained the first modern usages of dictionary formatting and included the definition, etymology, and use of words from the English language. 

Fast forward to 1755, when Samuel Johnson published a two-volume dictionary named Dictionary of the English Language. It was far more extensive and detailed than any of its predecessors and set the yardstick for all other future dictionaries until the Oxford English Dictionary was published in 1884. 

The British Library notes that Johnson’s dictionary was:

‘… First published in 1755, the dictionary took just over eight years to compile, required six helpers and listed 40,000 words. Each word was defined in detail, the definitions illustrated with quotations covering every branch of learning.

‘It was a huge scholarly achievement, a more extensive and complex dictionary than any of its predecessors – the comparable French Dictionnaire had taken 55 years to compile and required the dedication of 40 scholars.’

Webster’s Dictionary and National Dictionary Day in the US[^30]

Noah Webster was born on 16^th October 1678 in West Hartford, Connecticut. In 1806, he published his first dictionary, A Compendious Dictionary of the English Language, and immediately began compiling an expanded and fully comprehensive dictionary, An American Dictionary of the English Language. It took twenty-seven years to complete. Incredibly, to evaluate the etymology of words, Webster learned twenty-six languages, including Old English (Anglo-Saxon), German, Greek, Latin, Italian, Spanish, French, Hebrew, Arabic, and Sanskrit. His book contained seventy thousand words, of which twelve thousand had never previously appeared in a published dictionary. 

Webster was a spelling reformer and believed that the English spelling rules were unnecessarily complicated, so in his dictionary, he introduced American- English spellings, such as color, honor, theater and so on.

It’s hardly surprising that Webster is considered the Father of the American Dictionary.  

What is a Concordance?^[31]

Although not a dictionary, a concordance is an alphabetical list of the principal words used in a book or body of work, listing every instance of each word with its immediate context.

Concordances have been compiled only for works of special importance, such as the Vedas^[32], Bible, Qur’an or the works of Shakespeare, James Joyce or classical Latin and Greek authors,^[33] because of the time, difficulty, and expense involved in creating a concordance in the pre-computer era.

A concordance is more than an index, with additional material such as commentary, definitions and topical cross-indexing, which makes producing one a labour-intensive process even when assisted by computers.

A Bible concordance is a verbal index to the Bible. A simple form lists Biblical words alphabetically, with indications to enable the inquirer to find the passages of the Bible where the words occur.^[34]  Concordances may be produced for the original languages of the Biblical books, or (more commonly) they are compiled for translations.

Friars of the Dominican order invented the verbal concordance of the Bible. As the basis of their work, they used the text of the Latin Vulgate, the standard Bible of the Middle Ages in Western Europe. The first concordance, completed in 1230, was undertaken under the guidance of Cardinal Hugo de Saint-Cher (Hugo de Sancto Charo), assisted by fellow Dominicans.^[35] The best modern example of a concordance is Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible, originally written in 1890, which has an index of every word in the King James Version of the Bible, constructed under the direction of James Strong.

The Oxford English Dictionary^[36]

Rightly so, Oxford University Press say the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) is “The definitive record of the English language”.  Everyone interested in our language should take the time to read The History of the OED online at: https://public.oed.com/history/. Go there, and you won’t be disappointed. That’s where you can explore its origins and development and gain new insight into this extraordinary, living document.

It all started in 1857 when the members of the Philological Society of London decided that existing English language dictionaries were incomplete and deficient, and they called for a complete re-examination of the language from Anglo-Saxon times onwards.  The project proceeded slowly, and in 1879, an agreement was made with the Oxford University Press and James A. H. Murray to begin work on a New English Dictionary (as the Oxford English Dictionary was then known). The new dictionary was planned as a four-volume, 6,400-page work that would include all English language vocabulary from the Early Middle English period (1150 AD) onward, plus some earlier words if they had continued to be used in Middle English.

Work on the Dictionary continued with new editors joining the project. James Murray now had a large team directed by himself, Henry Bradley, W.A. Craigie, and C.T. Onions. The Oxford University Press website notes that:  

“These men worked steadily, producing fascicle [see below **] after fascicle until finally, in April 1928, the last volume was published. Instead of 6,400 pages in four volumes, the Dictionary published under the imposing name A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles – contained over 400,000 words and phrases in ten volumes.

“In 1992, the Oxford English Dictionary again made history when a CD-ROM edition of the work was published. Suddenly a massive, twenty-volume work that takes up four feet of shelf space and weighs 150 pounds is reduced to a slim, shiny disk that takes up virtually no space and weighs just a few ounces.

“The Oxford English Dictionary on CD-ROM has been a great success. The electronic format has revolutionized the way people use the Dictionary to search and retrieve information. Complex investigations into word origins or quotations that would have been impossible to conduct using the print edition now take only a few seconds. Because the electronic format makes the Oxford English Dictionary so easy to use, its audience now embraces all kinds of interested readers beyond the confines of the scholarly community.

“Today, once again, the Oxford English Dictionary is under alteration. Continuing the technological innovations, the Dictionary is now available as an online publication designed to take full advantage of this powerful and accessible medium.

“The content of the Dictionary is also being comprehensively revised. However, instead of adding new material in supplements to the main edition, or simply interspersing new information throughout the body of the old edition, the entire work is being updated. This is the first time material written by Murray and the early editors has been changed since they finished in 1928. The result of this ambitious undertaking will be a completely revitalised Oxford English Dictionary.”

** The word fascicle means a ‘separately published instalment of a book or other printed work.’

Online and Electronic Dictionaries^[37]

Until the 20^th century, whether written in stone or printed on paper, a dictionary was always physical, but it’s very different now. Advances in technology have seen dictionaries become available in the form of electronic data that can be accessed in various ways. 

Most of the early electronic dictionaries were merely the content of printed dictionaries made available in electronic form. However, while the content was the same, electronic dictionaries offered search functions and features that made them far more useful and provided many new and exciting possibilities that have since been exploited.

The electronic dictionary revolution started in Japan in the 1970s when the first Apple computer was in its infancy. Sharp was the first company to develop and release an electronic dictionary as we know it today. The company’s first model, the IQ-3000, featured definitions and search options for at least 5,000 Japanese words and about 2,800 foreign words. While its specifications are minuscule compared to electronic dictionaries today, its release was phenomenal, and it became immensely popular for students taking entrance exams and Japanese travellers overseas.

Electronic dictionaries are essentially databases whose data exists in digital form and can be accessed through several different media, either free or requiring payment, and:

• There is no limit to their size.
• Their programmers do not have to worry about how much space the information will take up.
• These databases can include reference sections, verb conjugations, interactive features, pictures, video clips, and audio pronunciations.
• Both general and specialist electronic dictionaries are available online.

Electronic dictionary databases, especially those included with software dictionaries, are often extensive and can contain up to 500,000 headwords and definitions, verb conjugation tables, and a grammar reference section. Bilingual electronic dictionaries and monolingual dictionaries of inflected languages often include an interactive verb conjugator capable of word stemming and lemmatisation.

Sources and Further Reading

• http://lexicograph.ruslang.ru/TextPdf2/Roz_lexicology_course.pdf
• http://www.ciil-ebooks.net/html/lexico/link5.htm
• https://blog.bookstellyouwhy.com/the-history-and-significance-of-dictionaries
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dictionary
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lexicography
• https://proofed.co.uk/writing-tips/a-brief-history-of-dictionaries-for-national-dictionary-day/
• https://public.oed.com/history/
• https://public.oed.com/history/dictionary-milestones/
• https://study.com/learn/lesson/what-is-a-dictionary.html
• https://word-connection.com/a-brief-history-of-dictionaries/
• https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/samuel-johnsons-a-dictionary-of-the-english-language-1755
• https://www.britannica.com/summary/dictionary
• https://www.britannica.com/topic/dictionary/Kinds-of-dictionaries
• https://www.dictionary.com/e/getting-words-into-dictionaries/ 
• https://www.thecuriousreader.in/features/dictionaries-history/
• https://www.usingenglish.com/glossary/dictionary-types.html
• https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/the-world-s-oldest-dictionaries.html
• https://guides.library.harvard.edu/c.php?g=310256&p=2078075
• https://proofed.com/writing-tips/a-brief-history-of-dictionaries-for-national-dictionary-day/
• YouTube Video: (The Open University) The History of English – The Age of the Dictionary at: https://youtu.be/c7W7UgFxri8
• YouTube Video: Oxford English Dictionary: An Origin Story at:  https://youtu.be/R3C0mWLc2fI
• YouTube Video: Special Presentation: History of the Modern Dictionary (Webster) at: https://youtu.be/3c0eo9oPGrE
• YouTube Video: History of Dictionary at: https://youtu.be/EWrP6iU0pic

Books: Examples of specialised dictionaries^[38]

• A.S. Hornby: Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary of Current English, Oxford University Press, 2000. Available at: https://www.amazon.co.uk/S-Hornby-Advanced-Learners-Dictionary/dp/B00I61ZCNA/
• Dinah Birch (Ed.): The Oxford Companion to English Literature, Oxford University Press, 2009. Available at: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Oxford-Companion-English-Literature-Companions/dp/0192806874
• A.P.Cowie, R. Mackin & I.R. McCaig: Oxford Dictionary of Current Idiomatic English. Vol.1. Verbs with Prepositions and Particles. Oxford University Press, 1976. Available at: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Oxford-Dictionary-Current-Idiomatic-English/dp/B00FG265XI
• Phraseological Dictionary – A.V. Koonin: An Anglo-Russian Phraseological Dictionary, 2005. Available at: https://www.amazon.co.uk/English-Russian-Phraseological-Dictionary-Kunin/dp/5803303399  
• Phrasal Verbs Dictionaries. Rosemary Courtenay: Longman Dictionary of Phrasal Verbs, Longman, 1983. Available at: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Longman-Dictionary-Phrasal-Richard-Courtney/dp/0582555302
• E. Partridge: Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English, Routledge, 2014, available at: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Concise-Partridge-Dictionary-Unconventional-Unconvetional/dp/0415527201
• E. Partridge: Dictionary of Usage and Abusage, Penguin, 1999. Available at: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Usage-Abusage-English-Penguin-Reference/dp/0140514422
• H. Wentworth and S.B. Flexner: The Dictionary of American Slang, Pocket Books, 1968. Available at: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Dictionary-American-Compiled-Wentworth-Flexner/dp/B0018H3T8O
• Daniel Jones: English Pronouncing Dictionary, Cambridge University Press, 1997. Available at: https://www.amazon.co.uk/English-Pronouncing-Dictionary-15th-ed/dp/0521452724
• Rev. W.W. Skeat: An Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, Clarendon Press, 1961. Available at: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Etymological-Dictionary-English-Language-Enlarged/dp/B001RLUA56/

End Notes and Explanations

[1] Source: https://languages.oup.com/about-us/what-is-a-dictionary-dataset/  

[2] Source: under Lecture 1: http://lexicograph.ruslang.ru/TextPdf2/Roz_lexicology_course.pdf

[3] Source: http://www.ciil-ebooks.net/html/lexico/link5.htm  The Central Institute of Indian Languages was set up in 1969.

[4] Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lexicography

[5] Suggested Reading: Lexicography at a Crossroads. Dictionaries and Encyclopedias Today, Lexicographical Tools Tomorrow, (Linguistic Insights: Studies in Language and Communication), January 2009, Publisher: Peter Lang, Editor: Henning Bergenholtz; Sandro Nielsen; Sven Tarp, ISBN: 978-3-03911-799-4. Available at: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Lexicography-Crossroads-Dictionaries-Encyclopedias-Lexicographical/dp/3039117998

[6] Explanation: Onomasiology (from Greek, ‘to name’), is a branch of linguistics concerned with the question “how do you express X?” It is in fact most commonly understood as a branch of lexicology, the study of words (although some apply the term also to grammar and conversation). Onomasiology, as a part of lexicology, starts from a concept which is taken to be prior^[1] (i.e. an idea, an object, a quality, an activity etc.) and asks for its names. The opposite approach is known as semasiology: here one starts with a word and asks what it means, or what concepts the word refers to. Thus, an onomasiological question is, e.g., “what are the names for long, narrow pieces of potato that have been deep-fried?” (answers: french fries in the US, chips in the UK, etc.), while a semasiological question is, e.g., “what is the meaning of the term chips?” (answers: ‘long, narrow pieces of potato that have been deep-fried’ in the UK, ‘slim slices of potatoes deep fried or baked until crisp’ in the US). Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onomasiology

[7] Source:  A Practical Guide to Lexicography, Sterkenburg 2003, pp. 155–157.

[8] Ibid, pp.3-4.

[9] Source:  https://study.com/learn/lesson/what-is-a-dictionary.html 

[10] Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lexicography

[11] Explanation: In morphology and lexicography, a lemma (plural lemmas or lemmata) is the canonical form (see: Zgusta, Ladislav (2006). Dolezal, Fredric F.M. (ed.). Lexicography then and now. p. 202. ISBN 3484391294. A minor… problem can arise when the canonical form of the headword, i.e. the form in which it is to be cited, is to be chosen), dictionary form, or citation form of a set of word forms (see: Francis, W.N.; Kučera, H (1982). Frequency Analysis of English Usage: Lexicon and Usage. Boston: Houghton Mifflin). In English, for example, break, breaks, broke, broken and breaking are each a form of the same lexeme, with break as the lemma by which they are indexed. Lexeme, in this context, refers to the set of all the inflected or alternating forms in the paradigm of a single word, and lemma refers to the particular form that is chosen by convention to represent the lexeme. Lemmas have special significance in highly inflected languages such as Arabic, Turkish and Russian. The process of determining the lemma for a given lexeme is called lemmatisation. The lemma can be viewed as the chief of the principal parts, although lemmatisation is at least partly arbitrary. Explained more fully at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lemma_(morphology)

[12] Source: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/307825388_The_Effect_of_Lexicographical_Information_Costs_on_Dictionary_Making_and_Use

[13] Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dictionary

[14] Sources: (1) “DCCLT – Digital Corpus of Cuneiform Lexical Texts”. oracc.museum.upenn.edu, (2) Dictionary – MSN Encarta, (3) Jackson, Howard (24^th February 2022). The Bloomsbury Handbook of Lexicography. Bloomsbury Publishing. ISBN 978-1-0-18172-4.

[15] Erya has been attributed by many to Confucius.

[16] Source: Peter Bing (2003). “The unruly tongue: Philitas of Cos as scholar and poet“. Classical Philology. 98 (4): 330 348. Referenced at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dictionary

[17] Source: http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761573731/Dictionary.html

[18] Explanation: Pazend or Pazand is one of the writing systems used for the Middle Persian language. It was based on the Avestan alphabet, a phonetic alphabet originally used to write Avestan, the language of the Avesta, the primary sacred texts of Zoroastrianism. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pazend

[19] Source: Besim Atalay, Divanü Lügat-it Türk Dizini, TTK Basımevi, Ankara, 1986

[20] Zeki Velidi Togan, Zimahşeri’nin Doğu Türkçesi İle Mukaddimetül Edeb’i

[21] Source: Ahmet Caferoğlu, Kitab Al Idrak Li Lisan Al Atrak, 1931

[22] Source:  Bahşāyiş Bin Çalıça, Bahşayiş Lügati: Hazırlayan: Fikret TURAN, Ankara 2017.

[23] Source: Rashid, Omar. “Chasing Khusro”. The Hindu.

[24] Source: “Ḳāmūs”, J. Eckmann, Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd ed., Brill

[25] Source: Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española, edición integral e ilustrada de Ignacio Arellano y Rafael Zafra, Madrid, Iberoamericana-Vervuert, 2006, pg. XLIX.

[26] Source: https://study.com/learn/lesson/lexicography-history-focus-importance.html#:~:text=The%20ancient%20civilizations%20of%20India%2C%20Greece%2C

[27] Ladislav Zgusta (born 1924 in Libochovice – died 2007 in Urbana, Illinois) was a Czech-American historical linguist and lexicographer, who wrote one of the first textbooks on lexicography (according to R. R. K. Hartmann (2003). Lexicography: Dictionaries, compilers, critics, and users. Routledge. p. 21. ISBN 978-0-415-25366-6).  Zgusta was a professor of linguistics and classics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Dutch lexicographer, Piet van Sterkenburg, referred to Zgusta as “the twentieth-century godfather of lexicography“: Source:  P. G. J. van Sterkenburg, ed. (2003). A practical guide to lexicography. John Benjamins Publishing Company. p.4. ISBN 978-1-58811-381-8.

[28] Source: British Library at: https://www.bl.uk/learning/timeline/item102970.html

[29] Source:  https://study.com/learn/lesson/what-is-a-dictionary.html

[30] Source: https://proofed.com/writing-tips/a-brief-history-of-dictionaries-for-national-dictionary-day/

[31] Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concordance_(publishing) and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bible_concordance

[32] Source: Bloomfield, Maurice (1990). A Vedic Concordance. Motilal Banarsidass Publ. ISBN 81-208-0654-9.

[33] Source: Wisbey, Roy (April 1962). “Concordance Making by Electronic Computer: Some Experiences with the Wiener Genesis”. The Modern Language Review. Modern Humanities Research Association. 57 (2): 161–172. doi:10.2307/3720960. JSTOR 3720960.

[34] Source:  Publication now in the public domain: Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). “Concordances of the Bible“. Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company.

[35] Ibid

[36] Source: https://public.oed.com/history

[37] Sources: (1) https://word-connection.com/a-brief-history-of-dictionaries/#h-dictionaries-in-the-electronic-age and (2) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_dictionary

[38] Source: http://lexicograph.ruslang.ru/TextPdf2/Roz_lexicology_course.pdf