• SomeoneElseMod@feddit.ukOPM
      1·
      1 year ago

      For anyone interested here’s a very abbreviated rough list of the first ever dictionaries, summarised from Wikipedia:

      • First Sumerian-Akkadian word list is dated around 2300 BCE.
      • The first surviving monolingual dictionary is Chinese and from 3rd century BCE.
      • First Arabic dictionary was from 8th century.
      • The oldest surviving Japanese dictionary is from 835.
      • The word dictionary was invented by an Englishmen in 1220. There are English-Latin, English- French and English-Spanish bilingual dictionaries from this time.
      • First Latin dictionary was published in 1440.
      • The first alphabetical English dictionary was published in 1604.
      • A Spanish, Italian and French dictionary were published ~1611.
      • The first American dictionary was completed in 1825.

      I would have thought there would be dictionary of hieroglyphics before any of them, but if there was it hasn’t survived.

  • FredericChopin_@feddit.uk
    0·
    1 year ago

    Dr William Minor submitted over 10,000 words to the first draft of the Oxford English Dictionary from a Scottish Lunatic Asylum.

    There was a movie about it called The Professor and the Madman.

      • Blaidd@lemm.eeEnglish
        0·
        1 year ago

        And?

        edit: I think this is probably the question that came across as combative, so I apologize. I would point out that the American in the screenshot did not say America wrote the first dictionary, just the dictionary, and the screenshot cuts out all context to what was being replied to so do we know it’s incorrect? In America, America wrote the dictionary, and this is a world instance. (I actually would not use the word “America” here, but rather “the US”, but I am matching the phrasing in the post title that America wrote the dictionary)