Brief History of English and Dictionaries

Introduction

Why should you care about the history of English and dictionaries?  If you know the history of some thing, then you know that thing better.  Think about a friendship you share with a person.  It is more than likely that y'all have a symbiotic relationship because y'all know each other's past, are a part of each other's past.  Apply that to English and dictionaries.  Let them become more a part of your life.

English

Lexicographers (those who compile dictionaries) categorize English as Indo-European, a hypothetical language that originated in central Europe then spread east and west.  English is part of the Germanic branch of the Indo-European language, which, again, is a hypothetical language.  It was Sir William Jones who devised the theory of the Indo-European language.  He went to India, learned Sanskrit, and noticed it was similar to European languages.  Some regard him as the first linguist (a person who studies the nature, structure and variation of language).

Linguists have created an inexact timeline of the origin of English.  From 500 to 0 B.C.E. (Before the Common Era), the Celts, who were Indo-Europeans, settled in Britain (England, Scotland and Ireland).  The Celts spoke Celtic, not English.  From 0 to 400 C.E. (Common Era), the Romanization of Britain occurred.  The Romans spoke Latin.  What survive from Celtic are geographical names such as London and Thames.  What survive from Latin are geographical names with the suffix -castra, such as Dorchester and Lancaster.  When their empire began to collapse, the Romans left Britain.  As a result Britain was attacked frequently, so the Celts invited the Angles, Saxons and Jutes--Germanic tribes from the European continent--to protect them. 

A mix of Celtic and Germanic, Old English (OE) developed between 450 and 1066 C.E.  It is an inflective language with Germanic (Scandinavian) vocabulary.  Vestiges (evidence) of inflection are irregular plurals--feet from foot, for example--and pronouns--I and me, for examples.  Inflection is an alteration of the form of a word by adding affixes--as in dogs from dog--or by changing the form of a base--as in spoke from speak--to indicate grammatical features such as number, person, mood or tense.  Even though only 14% of modern English words are Germanic, they are the 1000 most used words. 

But we must not skip over Middle English (ME), which developed between 1066 and 1500 C.E.  In 1066, William, Duke of Normandy, France defeated King Harold Godwineson of England at the Battle of Hastings.  Radical changes in grammar, pronunciation and vocabulary occurred under French rule.  Bilingualism developed.  Words such as cow, pig or swine, sheep, chicken, and deer were used by the natives, but words such as beef, pork, mutton, poultry, and venison were used by the French. 

Linguists divide Modern English (E) into two periods.  During the early Modern English period, between 1500 and 1700 C.E., words such as thou, ye and hither were in use.  The King James Bible (1611) influenced the vocabulary of this period, and the British borrowed numerous learned words from Latin.

English as we now know it primarily consists of Germanic (OE), French (ME), and Latin and Greek (E) words.  Everyday words are Germanic, polite words are French, and elevated words are Latin and Greek.  Compare the following synonyms.
      Germanic             French                    Latin

1. ask                    question                  interrogate
2. kill                    destroy                    exterminate
3. guts                   bowels                    intestines
4. time                  age                           epoch
5. begin                 commence             initiate
6. work                  labor                       exertion 
7. goodness           virtue                      probity 

Which diction (choice and use of words) do you want when you speak publicly?  You want mostly Germanic words because they are more concrete (perceptible by the senses) and more emotive (express emotion).  Which diction do you want when you write an academic essay?  French, Latin and Greek words are more suitable for such essays.  Which diction do you want when you write professionally?  You want to use Germanic and French words, depending on your audience and medium--memorandum, e-mail, letter, et cetera.  Which diction do you want when you write creatively?  You may want Germanic, French, Latin and/or Greek diction: it depends on the setting, the character, details, rhythm, et cetera. 

I am not suggesting that you will use only Germanic words when you speak publicly or only Fench, Latin and Greek words when you write academically.  All of the aforementioned communicative situations requires continual consideration of one's audience--the person or persons to whom you are communicating.  In other words, your audience will determine your diction. 

Dictionaries

If one of your goals is to become a better writer, you will want to refer frequently to a dictionary, ensuring one is next to you whenever you read and/or write.  But before we discuss the elements of a typical entry in a dictionary, we need to discuss the evolution of the dictionary. 

A lexicon is a dictionary.  Lexicography is the science of producing dictionaries.  Lexis is the Greek word for word.  The suffix -graphy is from the Latin suffix -graphia, to write.  The history of lexicography in the West begins with the Italian Academy (1612), where scholars worked under the Medici family.  At the French Academy (1694), scholars worked under King Louis XIV (The Sun King).  It supposedly took 40 scholars 40 years to produce the first French dictionary. 

English word-lists were compiled during the Renaissance.  But it was not until Nathan Bailey, the first modern lexicographer, published the Universal Etymological English Dictionary in 1721 that England had its first proper dictionary.  Bailey's Dictionarium Britannicum (1730) was the work to which Samuel Johnson referred when he prepared his Dictionary of the English Language in the mid-eighteenth century. 

Noah Webster was the first American lexicographer.  He was considered the chief American authority on the English language after he had published Grammatical Institute of the English Language.  His Compendious Dictionary (1806) was followed by his greatest work, The American Dictionary of the English Language (1828), which continues to be revised and abridged. 

Sir James Murray oversaw the creation of the New English Dictionary (NED) and the Oxford English Dictionary (OED).  Over 20 volumes the OED is an historical dictionary in that it attempts to provide the complete history and all senses of a word since the early Renaissance.  Dictionaries are prescriptive (inform people of the proper spellings, pronunciations and uses of words), descriptive (provide information only), or both.  The American Dictionary of the English Language is prescriptive; online dictionaries are descriptive.  Is the tenth edition of Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary prescriptive, descriptive or both?  Refer to "The Wonders of Webster's" to help you decide.