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The First English Dictionary, 1604: Robert Cawdrey's Table Alphabetically - Couverture rigide

Cawdrey, Robert

 
9781851243853: The First English Dictionary, 1604: Robert Cawdrey's Table Alphabetically
Couverture rigide
ISBN 10 : 1851243852 ISBN 13 : 9781851243853
Editeur : Bodleian Library, 2006

Synopsis

Here is a real treat for lovers of English – the very first dictionary in our language. Contrary to popular opinion, this honour goes not to Samuel Johnson, whose definitive tome appeared in 1755, but to Robert Cawdrey, who published his Table Alphabeticall in 1604.

Written for the benefit of Ladies, Gentlewomen or any other unskilfull persons, this was not a book for scholars but was aimed squarely at the non-fiction best-seller list of its day. It is a treasure-house of meaning, bristling with arresting and eminently quotable definitions. For example geometrie is the ‘art of measuring the earth’, and hecticke is ‘inflaming the hart, and soundest parts of the bodie’, while barbarian is ‘a rude person’, and a concubine is a ‘harlot, or light huswife’.

Cawdrey did set out to create an exhaustive catalogue of the language but rather a guide which would unlock the mystery of hard usual English wordes, borrowed from the Hebrew, Greeke, Latine, or French for educated gentlefolk encountering new words which English was then absorbing at a phenomenal rate.

Every entry in this list of 2,543 words sheds interesting light on early modern life and the development of the language. This edition, prepared from the sole surviving copy of the first edition, now in the Bodleian Library, also includes an extensive introduction setting the dictionary in its historical, social and literary context, and exploring the unusual and interesting career of its little-known author.

Published eight years ahead of the first of the first Italian dictionary and 35 years ahead of the first French dictionary, this work shows Cawdrey as a man ahead of his time and foreshadows the phenomenal growth of English and its eventual triumph as the new global lingua franca.

Les informations fournies dans la section « Synopsis » peuvent faire référence à une autre édition de ce titre.

À propos de l'auteur

John Simpson is the Chief Editor of the Oxford English Dictionary.

Les informations fournies dans la section « A propos du livre » peuvent faire référence à une autre édition de ce titre.

Éditeur
Bodleian Library
Date d'édition
2006
Langue
anglais
ISBN 10 
1851243852
ISBN 13 
9781851243853
Reliure
Relié
Numéro d'édition
1
Nombre de pages
160
Coordonnées du fabricant
non disponible
Personne responsable
non disponible