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LECTURE 9
LEXICOLOGY AS A SCIENCE

1. History of lexicology.
2. Types of dictionaries

Key terms: lexicology, encyclopedia, linguistic dictionary.
The theory and practice of compiling dictionaries is called
lexicography.
In other words it is the art and craft of writing dictionaries.
The Erya, from the early 3rd century BC, was the first
Chinese language dictionary. The book organized Chinese
characters by semantic groups. The intention of this dictionary was
to explain the true meaning and interpretation of words in the
context of older ancient texts.
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 Sextus Pompeius 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 word "dictionary" comes from neoclassical Latin, dictio,
meaning simply "word".
The history of compiling dictionaries for English comes as
far back as The Old English period, where we can find glosses of
religious books. Regular bilingual dictionaries began to appear in
th
the 15 century. These dictionaries were Anglo-Latin, Anglo-
German, Anglo-French.
The first true English dictionary was Robert Cawdrey's Table
Alphabetical of 1604, although it only included 3,000 words and
the definitions it contained were little more than synonyms. The

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