Dictionaries

[yoy]

This may have a really obvious answer but I'm just curious - when did the English language become so standardised? Who commissioned or invested someone with the power to create a dictionary and how did it become official? Are there any laws which protect language? Which was the first country or culture to formalise its language and create a dictionary?

[pega]

l have a very old dictionary and in the front is a picture of Dr Samuel Johnson 1709-1784 and states he is the father of all dictionaries and complided the first english dictionary --- you can research on this

[vehelpfulguy]

Small write up here on Samual Johnson.

http://andromeda.rutgers.edu/~jlynch/Johnson/Guide/dict.html

Not sure if you have seen Blackadder series 3 which features Robbie Coltrane playing Samual Johnson.

Blackadder keeps coming up with long invented words that Johnson finds are not in the dictionary.

[jno]

actually IAP I believe the French don't pay a whole lot of attention to the poor old academy - newspaper editors may feel obliged to, but kids on the streets (as in other countries) couldn't care less. The reason English is doing well is that it's really American. There are no official dictionaries; it's entirely up to individuals what words they use, though most will prefer to use words that make their meaning most clear to others.

Johnson's wasn't commissioned - just private enterprise - and wasn't the very first English dictionary but it was much bigger than previous ones, included lots of quotations to show how to use words, and was partly a social thing - it told readers which words were ok for polite society and which were slang or (even worse!) provincial. This chimed well with an age when social distinctions were becoming more rigid.

[shaneystar2]

One of the earliest dictionaries known, and which is still extant today in an abridged form, was written in Latin during the reign of the emperor Augustus. It is known by the title "De Significatu Verborum" ("On the meaning of words") and was originally compiled by Verrius Flaccus. It was twice abridged in succeeding centuries, first by Festus, and then by Paul the Deacon. Verrius Flaccus' dictionary was an abridged list of difficult or antiquated words, whose usage was illustrated by quotations from early Roman authors.

The first true English dictionary was the Table Alphabeticall of 1606, although it only included 3,000 words and the definitions it contained were little more than synonyms. The first one to be at all comprehensive was Thomas Blount's dictionary Glossographia of 1656.

[kaktus]

If you want to look into who protect their language to an extreme end, then look to Iceland. They have practically no words that aren't Icelandic in origin and they have some sort of board who has the lovely job of inventing new words when a something like a computer comes along :)