Content uploaded by Ulrike Hass
Author content
All content in this area was uploaded by Ulrike Hass on Sep 07, 2016
Content may be subject to copyright.
1
1
In search of the European dimension of lexicography
Ulrike Haß, June 2010
Plenary Paper, held at the Fifth International Conference for Historical Lexicography and
Lexicology, Oxford, St. Anns College, 16th – 18th June 2010.
The subject of my lecture contains two huge and really expansive concepts or ideas: Europe and
lexicography. Together they might bring me in trouble, but I brought this subject upon myself. And as
they say: you’ve made your bed, now you must lie in it. I will try to describe in detail which aspects and
which kind of factors might cover a European dimension of lexicography.
In the first part of my lecture I want to explain how the concepts of Europe and lexicography are
connected with each other.
In the second and main part, several elements should be discussed which could be considered to
constitute “Europeanness” with regard to knowledge representation.
In the last part of my lecture I will deal with the question whether lexicography is more European than
national or more global than European or more national than anything else.
1 Part 1: Definition of terms
A long time ago, I became addicted to dictionaries and lexicographical work as probably all of you, too.
What drew my interests in a special way were the interrelations between dictionaries and their societal
surroundings and the conditions under which dictionaries were planned, written and received.
This is why I think research on lexicography has to include the cultural background and its impact on
lexicographical methodology, because lexicographers as well as dictionary users are social beings and
dictionaries are texts which have communicative functions. Of course, a cultural background is not
restricted to national borders; there is also a European or even global contextual impact. Fortunately I was
asked to edit a volume about great European dictionaries which covers about 30 reference works from
different European regions and from the age of enlightenment until the presence. This volume (Haß
2011) is almost completed and gave me the chance to gather a lot of facts and insights from the
contributors and their articles.
The term lexicography is normally related to dictionaries and is concerned with language. Due to the
limited extent of this paper, I omit all kind of multilingual and special dictionaries and focus on the big
and influential monolingual ones. But I would like to plead for a broad comprehension of the term
lexicography which comprises encyclopaedic lexicons, too. The difference is the bigger the more a
reference work emphasizes history of form and meaning of an entry.
1
But this seems to be a special case.
In Romanic cultures there was and there is a generic type of lexicographical text called encyclopaedic
dictionaries which indeed mixes information about words and information about things and ideas.
Furthermore, the transformation of dictionaries and encyclopaedias into internet versions is accompanied
by bundling and grouping information material from different sources. In the eyes of the internet user,
both text types tend to be one and the same.
But the best argument lies within the history of reference books; their interrelations are strong and
concrete. Under a cultural point of view when talking of lexicography one has to pool all kind of reference
books dealing with general information and addressing a general public.
1
Murray and Trench (OED) argued the case for this difference. Mugglestone in Haß 2011.
2
2
Now let me say something about the concept of Europe I am using here: The British Isles of course
belong to what is called Europe. If there might be any doubt in current politics, this is without any
relevance for the history of lexicography. All nations and cultures within Europe have at least indirect
relations to the Greek and Latin semantic systems, especially concerning written sources, and within them,
Arabic, Jewish and some further traditions are integrated. Far beyond the Middle Ages, the cultural
monopoly of Latin (“kulturelles Monopol”, von Polenz) constructed Europe as an intellectual space.
Whereas there are no discussions about what is to be considered to be the centre of Europe, the question
of the eastern, south-eastern and southern border between Europe, Asia and the Arabic world is still
open.
2 Part2: What might constitute a European background for lexicography
A background, whether national or European or global, is something one can pragmatically divide into
elements or single aspects, which are less abstract than the concept of a European dimension.
All in all, I think one can distinguish about 10 different elements of the ‘Europeaness’ of lexicography, at
least I couldn’t identify more than these. They are derived from categories of text linguistics as
dictionaries and lexicons are in fact texts and behave as texts.
There are internal and external features of lexicographical texts. Because the internal ones are well known
and described in handbooks I will focus on the external ones which belong to general history, especially
cultural, literary, social and even economic conditions. So please take a look at all ten:
1. Europe – a ‘space of knowledge’ (‘Wissensraum’)?
2. Common references
3. Language competencies of lexicographers
4. Transnational discussion forums
5. Common lexicographical scholarship, paradigm and methodology
6. Similar verbal imageries and attitudes towards the lexicographer’s work
7. Similar technical, medial and economic conditions
8. Similar contexts concerning language history
9. Similar contexts concerning education
10. Similar styles in lexicographical writing – a question of “content”?
Now I’ll start illustrating one after another.
1. Europe – a ‘space of knowledge’ (‘Wissensraum’)?
The German term Wissensraum raises suspicion to be merely a trendy fashionable expression without
substance. But I found at least one definition which is useful for my subject. Bernd Thum, a philologist
who dealt with European-Arabic interrelations in the Middle Ages, pleaded in favour of a more functional
point of view. According to Thum, space of knowledge is a metaphor which allows addressing more and
other than topographic items. Thum defines Wissensraum as follows (in my translation and highlighted by
myself):
“Space of knowledge is a zone of condensed relations which finally lead to solid common stocks
of knowledge. Condensation is what leads to new structures of information and knowledge.
Thereby, the whole organization of knowledge is changed sustainably; new dynamic cultural
identities are created. In consequence, the process of modernization is fostered in all partners and
it becomes easier to communicate about the big challenges which have to be faced collectively.
The requirement is that those new spaces of knowledge include as well cultural information,
knowledge about cultural processes and structures.”
2
2
In original: „als Zone verdichteter Beziehungen, die schließlich auch zu festen gemeinsamen Wissensbeständen
führen. Durch Verdichtung entstehen neue Informations- und Wissensstrukturen. Dies verändert nachhaltig die
gesamte Wissensordnung einer Kultur, schafft dynamische kulturelle Identitäten, fördert dadurch bei allen Partnern
3
3
This definition perfectly fits the European scientific community since the Middle Ages, based upon the
antique languages and culture, and it perfectly fits lexicography as the ideal way of ordering, transferring
and saving knowledge for centuries. In this setting, the Latin language plays a decisive role, because the
very first dictionaries in most countries of today’s Europe linked Latin to the vernacular. So, semantic
categories more or less tended to assimilate.
Condensation of intellectual exchange needs forms and it needs texts. If you look through the manifold
national histories of lexicography across Europe, you are confronted with a few special reference works
again and again.
2. Common references
The oldest common European reference work, the impact of which has widely been spread, is the
dictionary of the Florentine academy called the Crusca (Vocabolario degli Accademici della Crusca) which was
founded in 1612. Especially its prescriptive intention, to sort the ‘good’ from the ‘bad’ language like the
wheat from the chaff, became an example for many European cultures when needing a more standardized
and trans-regional language. What we don’t know so far is whether the Crusca-example had a direct
impact on other than European languages and dictionaries.
Lexicography on historical principles had a starting point at Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm. Not only the
founders of the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) but also lexicographers of ‘smaller’ European languages
like Dutch referred to this model; even criticizing is a sort of reference. In his 2007 paper, Kirkness has
impressively shown this role model status of the Grimms. As far as this kind of lexicography needs to
observe special methods, nearly all who followed the Grimm-model had to face the same kind of
problems: The dictionary project took more and more volumes and consumed more and more time and
money. This was why smaller nations or those with a rather late development of a standard national
language could not refer to those big historical opuses – they were work in progress for a too long time.
Instead, languages like Swedish, Danish, Icelandic, Polish and even Russian referred to older dictionaries,
namely Johnson’s and Adelung’s.
Some reference works were often cited and widely spread all over Europe, but did not attract any public
attention; these are Franz Passow and Emile Littré. Liddell-Scott’s Greek-English lexicon is an adaption of
Passow’s and still in use. Passow wrote a kind of lexicographical manual (Passow 1813). Littré and Passow
were lexicographic instructors for all who understood Greek, French and German language as Zgusta
(1991) has pointed out.
Concerning encyclopaedias, you will also find two models for many other national variants: On the one
hand, Diderot’s Encyclopédie, on the other hand, the Encyclopaedia Britannica. Their model status has been
proven for instance for the Enciclopedia Italiana (35 volumes, published 1929–1937). But I will finish this
topic here. We should be aware that the interrelationships between dictionaries and lexicons since the
Early modern times are so tight (cf. Sledd/Kolb 1974, 4) that the interesting subject is not any originality
of one author before another, but what the web of lexicographical intertextuality looks like and which
expansion it displays. This web is yet to be drawn.
3. Language competencies of lexicographers
Without doubt, lexicographers in former centuries knew much more languages as we do today and they
were able to understand any language information within dictionaries, even in those for exotic languages.
This fact is proven for Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm in Kirkness 2007. Though at the moment I cannot
die Modernisierung und erleichtert die Verständigung über die großen Aufgaben, die gemeinsam zu bewältigen sind.
Voraussetzung ist, dass die neuen Wissensräume auch kulturelle Informationen, Wissen über kulturelle Prozesse und
Strukturen mit einschließen.“ (Thum 2009, 82)
4
4
prove this hypothesis for another great European lexicographer, it seems very probable that all authors
until the mid-20th century knew Latin and Greek first, followed by several languages of their geographical
or cultural vicinity, and thirdly various others. It is very likely that nowadays the amount of language
competencies for reading foreign reference books has diminished seriously; language competence is
focused on English. The lexicographical wealth of for instance Latvian or Portuguese is not realized by the
rest of Europe and the world.
4. Transnational discussion forums
During the heydays of lexicographical innovations in the 19th century, which have also been the heydays of
language competencies, lexicographic discussions primarily took place within periodicals. I came across
two of these periodicals being published in German, but showing a rather international communication
between experts of linguistics and lexicography. One is the Archiv für das Studium der neueren Sprachen und
Literaturen, founded in 1846. Here, for example, Daniel Sanders, a critic and opponent of the Grimms,
published rather many articles and reviews. These can be seen as preparation for his own dictionary
concept. The other periodical is called Archiv für lateinische Lexikographie und Grammatik and was edited by
Eduard Wölfflin from 1884 onwards. The intention of this periodical clearly was to be a discussion forum
and preparation platform for the Thesaurus linguae Latinae which aims at the complete documentation of
the Latin lexicon all over Europe and the world.
3
Wölfflin was both, editor of the periodical and ten years
later one of the founders of this biggest Latin lexicon ever planned. The contributions in the periodical
came from all important countries in Europe and occasionally even from the United States. Most authors
wrote in German, but some wrote in English, French, Italian, and of course Latin, though their national
background referred to more European countries as to Scandinavia or to the Balkans. There was a
considerable impact of the periodical not only on the lexicographical practice of the Thesaurus linguae
latinae, but far more linguistically. The Archiv für lateinische Lexikographie figured as a very innovative forum
where significant ideas about semantics have been discussed and disseminated. The German scholar and
innovative lexicographer Hermann Paul was inspired by this discussion.
The impact of such forums in other European countries is another challenge for research. As a practical
consequence, they tend to result in convergent methodology in lexicography.
5. Common lexicographical scholarship, paradigm and methodology
Every lexicographer who was sufficiently encouraged to start with a new dictionary or lexicon looked for
orientation concerning general methods and tangible hints in solving problems. All who borrowed from
prior works did not copy but adapted the older to their own new intention. This was the more successful
the more similar the historical context of the lexicon was. Obviously, lexicography on historical principles
did not borrow from rationalist dictionaries of the age of enlightenment, except where both merged as in
countries with a rather young standard language or with less human potential to work on both, semantics
and etymology.
Lexicography based on historical principles was a story of great success. Many other European nations
adapted to their own conditions what Grimm and the Oxford English Dictionary had practiced. Above all,
this kind of lexicography was closely related to an innovative paradigm in philology which developed
etymology and the field of language comparison. Together they started their triumph all over Europe. But
the distinction between historical and rational, usage-oriented lexicography is rather general and rough.
Difference and similarity between lexicographical ideas and practices can also be found on more subtle
levels. I will give an example:
Trench of the OED followed Passow especially in the point of giving the “biography of a word”
(according to Mugglestone in Haß 2011). The Grimms explained their lexicographical intention as giving
3
Besides, the former meaning of thesaurus comprised alphabetical ordering.
5
5
the “Naturgeschichte der Wörter”
4
which means history of the nature of a word. biography or as Passow
named it: “Lebensgeschichte” (Kirkness 2007) refers to the lifetime of an individual human being and thus
has to be interpreted metaphorically, implying a personification of every single word. Compared to this,
the expression Naturgeschichte refers to the evolution of something of natural kind, for instance an animal
or plant, the evolution of which is to be described. With this term, Wilhelm Grimm referred to the state of
the art in science at his time, as Murray and Trench did, too, but in other ways. It was interesting for me to
read in Mugglestone (in Haß 2011) that Murray talked about “philological science” instead of
“humanities”. The historical paradigm made a real science out of the former craft of lexicography.
Common paradigms and various adaptations of methodical principles whether on a general or on a subtle
level may be called European if somewhere there are different methodologies to be identified. Are there –
outside Europe – other than historical or usage-oriented ways of language documentation? Are there other
than character driven or ontological ways of ordering knowledge in a lexicon? In Arab culture and related
to religious topics there ought to have been ordering by question and answer; in fact there seems to be a
finite range of universal types of questions convenient for structuring fields of knowledge: who, what,
when, why, to whom and so on. But up to now, I don’t have any idea about the relevance of this in non-
European lexicography.
5
6. Similar verbal imageries and attitudes towards the lexicographer’s work
The typical lament which might characterize the typical lexicographer till recently was the sigh: ‘so many
books to extract, so many words!’ All of us are familiar with these often cited sentences, f. i. of Johnson,
of Jacob Grimm. But the more crucial point I want to point out is the attitude of the public towards a
dictionary. And obviously, there is a transnational similarity, too: There are three types of metaphors we
use when facing dictionaries and encyclopaedias:
First: The dictionary as guide or guideline, in German expressed personified as Sprachrichter (judge); it
represents the prescriptive tradition in any lexicography.
The second metaphor is that of thesaurus which means a house or box of treasuries, the same in German:
Schatzhaus; everything stored in it is like gold belonging to the people, so it has to be admired rather than
analyzed. The third metaphor arose with encyclopaedias and seems to dominate all kinds of lexicons
today: storage of information. Though the origin of this metaphor is agricultural and refers to the location
where the harvest is kept, the more crucial parallel concerns the human brain which we also use to call
storage or memory, transferring this to computers, too. Within this metaphorical frame, the outstanding
feature is usefulness. And it is the user who makes the gold out of the data.
Throughout history, there are several examples testifying in particular the thesaurus-metaphor. This is
common with dictionaries as well as with encyclopaedias especially in the 19th and early 20th century.
The thesaurus-metaphor can become highly politically relevant. The Enciclopedia Italiana was planned to be
a prestigious object for Italian fascism; the same intention can be found in both, the Dictionary of the
Sowjet-Russian academy of science and the Great Sowjet encyclopaedia. After the Second World War,
Ukrainian emigrants living in Germany, Canada and several other countries created the encyclopaedia of
Ukrainian studies. Nations without a political status seemed to create regularly comprehensive thesauruses
to represent and to demonstrate their national cultures.
4
Wilhelm Grimm, Rede über das Deutsche Wörterbuch, Ausgabe reclam, Seite??
5
Concerning Arab encyclopedias cf. Biesterfeld 2004, Arab lexicography cf. Haywood 1991.
6
6
7. Similar technical, medial and economic conditions
The history of lexicography tells that the role and impact of publishers was often underrated. Concerning
the great French encyclopaedia, Robert Darnton wrote a rather thrilling book about its economic history.
Many dictionaries from the age of enlightenment onwards have been initiated by publishers who looked
for authors and sometimes had to persuade somebody to do the work. In the case of Grimms’, even three
publishing houses independently from each other offered the idea of a national dictionary to them. The
publishers themselves were inspired by the impressing story of success the Brockhaus Conversationslexicon
showed. Between 1809 and 1870 the number of copies per edition grew from 2000 to more than 300,000
(Haß-Zumkehr 1995, 286). The economic situation around 1830 was highly favourable due to two
reasons: On the one hand, technical innovations allowed mass production of books, while on the other
hand increased reading competencies of people provided for a buying public. These conditions might
have been the same in most European countries, only temporally deviating in one or two decades. The
common fundament was the coincidence of industrialization and national movements.
There is no need for pointing out the media conditions of the internet age which doubtlessly seem to be
global, not national or European. But if you look at languages with less than maybe 5 million speakers,
even the technical conditions as corpus material, websites and the coverage of literature, text types and so
on are much smaller. Nevertheless, their lexicography followed the model of bigger neighbours within
Europe. So globalization does not create absolutely the same conditions for all languages and all national
cultures.
8. Similar contexts concerning language history
First of all, this topic concerns dictionaries. In all European countries and languages, they have been used
as predominant instruments for language development. So it can be observed throughout Europe that
history of lexicography and history of language are closely related. European Languages other than the
four big ones show very similar constellations, too, whether you look at Scandinavia – or at Ukrainia as an
example for all nations in Eastern Europe which had a significant need to develop a national culture and
language beside the dominant Russian.
In so far as language history gets significant impact from language planning, one can identify three phases:
In the first phase, when the emancipation of any vernacular from Latin starts, people debate on what kind
of language would be the best one; this is the phase of grammatical treatises. As in most European
countries this phase occurred in the late Middle Ages, but might be found much later.
In the second phase debating on language standard reaches a level of documentation; this is the moment
of dictionaries. There are several language academies in European countries, later on language councils or
institutes, which were influential at this point. All these authorities focused the debate on certain aspects
like spelling, foreign words, and priority of written or oral standard. Quite often older lexicons were
rewritten and enriched in a way that questions of standard were explicitly addressed. The longer the
production of a dictionary took, the more topics were included in the debate of standardization. So we
find both: Dictionaries the intention of which is to describe a standard but which are received by the
public as prescriptive authority, and dictionaries which are, according to their prefaces, dedicated to an
accepted standard, but in fact describe what is found in a corpus of extracted texts.
The last phase is that of consolidation of a language standard. Dictionaries are now one form of
documentation among others, but an outstanding one, which often has a symbolic value. Its task is to ‘log’
further language development, thus supplements and new editions are important. For most European
languages this phase starts at the beginning of the 20th century, increasing after the World Wars. At the
end of the process, dictionaries are no longer treasuries but storages of lexical information.
7
7
One might regularly project the huge, lengthy and heterogeneous dictionaries onto the last two of the
three phases of language history in order to understand them better.
9. Similar contexts concerning education history
This topic can be dealt with very shortly because language and education history are interrelated, too. The
matter I want to point out here is that using and buying dictionaries and encyclopaedias is strongly
dependent on the degree of literacy in a society. The prerequisite of interest in dictionaries and
encyclopaedias is literacy and an interest in dealing with literature of any kind. Lexicography therefore is
always influenced by the special idea of education within a society at a given time. In the 19th century, the
aftermath of the enlightenment led to a mentality which was extremely well-disposed to a do-it-yourself
education and to acquiring knowledge independently from schools and other pedagogical institutions. The
foundation of libraries which provided public access to expensive reference works and publishers’ offering
of smaller editions of the big ones are related topics which should be dealt with in the history of European
lexicography, too.
10. Similar styles in lexicographical writing – a question of “content”?
Finally, what about the content? Do all European cultures share the same knowledge, if all encyclopaedias
have common roots and numerous interrelations as shown above? The question is precarious and one has
to face great methodological efforts to get a valid answer. Actually, there are two options for me here and
today:
First, there are very few papers, published by representatives of special disciplines, for instance
musicologists, jurists, physicians. These papers are difficult to find and I’m sure what I found up to now is
rather haphazard. I will refer to two of such papers in which the encyclopaedic presentations of music and
of physics in the 18th century have been compared in works of different linguistic backgrounds.
Anselm Gerhard (1998) analyzed 18th century French and German encyclopaedias concerning their
information spectrum about music. He compared both, general and special works, including entries
written by Jean Jacques Rousseau for the Great French encyclopaedia. As a transnational tendency, he
found that the concept of music changed from a technical understanding of music theory, from the
viewpoint of the musician, to a more aesthetic understanding of music as an art which is situated on the
same level as the other fine arts and which appreciated the composer instead of the musician. The
similarity of French and German knowledge relating to this topic was caused by “a narrow web of mutual
dependencies” (Gerhard 1998, 51), that means discussing and arguing, indirect paraphrases and extensive
plagiarism. This development clearly shows an intra-European connection in building common stocks of
knowledge.
Andreas Kleinert (1998) analyzed one special German encyclopedic dictionary about physics published in
the 18th century. He shows that its author refused to simply translate a French model into German
because the French original was lacking the knowledge about the innovative discoveries of the Germans
and the Britons; furthermore the French author was said to have a preference for his own nation and
therefore to stuck to the old and obsolete scientific systems (Kleinert 1998, 130). In consequence, the
critic wrote a completely new work about physics and compiled the knowledge of at least 10 physicians
from Germany, France, England, the Netherlands, Italy and North America.
This example is interesting because of the explicit postulation that knowledge about physics ought to be
European. Maybe one could say, even ought to be world-wide, but the European scientific community
couldn’t overlook more than Europe in those times. As we know today, the Chinese, the Arabic and other
contemporary knowledge systems were almost inaccessible due to language barriers respectively due to
oral tradition. Under the point of view of knowledge, North America figured as a kind of subsidiary
outside Europe.
8
8
The trans-national connection within physics is even more convincing than in music; the existence of
physics completely depends on a scientific community with a common language and communication
forums, whereas music at least has a folk practice besides being subject of theoretical considerations.
However, the encyclopedic knowledge of the 18th century does not show any relation to national or
regional musical traditions; it’s only limited to the sphere of humanities. In other words, the estimated
value of a knowledge topic has a strong effect on its representation in an encyclopedia: as if there was a
standard or ‘golden’ variety of knowledge worthwhile to be documented.
My second option to treat the question of content is the following: I undertook a comparison of entries of
the modern Encyclopaedia Britannica (EB) and the Brockhaus Enzyklopädie on my own. I checked the
following entries in these two works in order to cover more and other topics than only scientific ones,
namely social, technical, institutional and medial knowledge, and partly orally traded knowledge. I also
wanted to cover topics which came from outside Europe; finally I looked up important men from three
countries:
book, crocodile, chess, map, middle ages, money, neighbour, obstetrics/midwifery, steel
(making), structuralism. – Descartes, Leibniz, Newton, Christian Wolff.
My intention is not more than testing an approach which might be applied within a serious context of
research. What has to be mentioned as well: The Brockhaus Enzyklopädie is the current printed edition
which will not be completely transferred to an internet version whereas the EB is comprehensively
adjusted to hyper textual structures. So the medium has a serious impact on the presentation of knowledge
which therefore cannot be claimed to be nation specific.
Nevertheless, there are two significant differences to point out – differences in style which deeply affect
the perception of content.
The first difference concerns the presence and influence of language on the construction of knowledge.
At the very beginning of an entry, the Brockhaus gives, whenever reasonable, etymological information
and/or synonyms in order to explain which term is the mostly used one and which are not. The
definitions, especially those within the first sentence, are dictionary-like. Even variant readings of a term
are treated according to dictionary conventions as numbered senses, although only one of them is a
relevant encyclopaedic topic. Let me give the example of Karte (map/chart), for which the first meaning
‘card’ (you may think of ‘postcard’) is mentioned, although this kind of ‘card’ is not worthwhile to be a
subject of information in the Brockhaus. Thus it lacks any further explanation, but it is there. Constructions
like the followings are quite usual:
allgemeine Bezeichnung für ...; spricht man von ...( wenn …); werden als… bezeichnet; [general
description for …; one refers to …(if…); are designated as…]
The EB clearly concentrates on the concept of a term, although in some cases the authors seem to feel
forced to give a comment on terms, but don’t seem to like it much, for example in the entry map:
“The tedious and somewhat abstract statements resulting from attempts to formulate precise
definitions of maps and charts are more likely to confuse than to clarify. The words map, chart,
and plat are used somewhat interchangeably. The connotations of use, however, are distinctive:
charts for navigation purposes …” (EB 2002)
So, finally, the author as well as the readers do away with the burdensome terminological question and
start with the description of cartography and map making.
The second notable difference concerns the role of individuals and biographical features which are
provided for a topic. The German encyclopaedia gives much more proper names, for example of
9
9
inventors of steel making, of cartographers and of obstetricians, names of famous chess players and so on.
All these names are typographically marked by small caps. Especially names of historical persons are given
in this way, so that one might say historical concepts are rather personified.
The Britannica, however, outlines any topic in a more general way; thematic center and margins are clearly
separated and every single item is adapted to the subject as a whole. Therefore, only a few proper names
are given and sometimes even seem to be a sort of decoration. It is, for example, not necessary to cite
Swifts mentioning of maps extensively in order to explain what maps have been in his day:
“As man explored and recorded his environment, the quality of his maps and charts improved.
These lines of Jonathan Swift were inspired by early maps:
So geographers, in Afric maps,
With savage pictures fill their gaps,
And o'er unhabitable downs
Place elephants for want of towns.” (EB 2002)
The maybe nation-specific difference in treating the person’s role in cultural achievements is underpinned
by the way famous men are described. Whether British, French or German persons, all entries I looked up
were longer in the Brockhaus and short in the Britannica, because the Britannica’s convention comprises
many cross references to large and comprehensive entries about for example history of philosophy or
physics and so on. Persons are almost completely integrated into developments and movements. The
printed Brockhaus lacks this narrow linking. But it is interesting that Brockhaus regularly informs about the
social background of the persons, something I didn’t find in the EB at all. Did you know that Leibniz was
the son of a lawyer and professor whereas Newton was the son of a farmer and Descartes a descendant of
an old noble family? We see: The chances to make one’s career are not distributed equally in our world.
But reading the Britannica seems to be more encouraging for all future Newtons yet to come.
The personifying and biographical emphasis of the Brockhaus might really be characteristic for German
knowledge codifications in general. A student of mine (Meike Wiese) recently examined a music lexicon of
the early 18th century and although its author held on to French and older German models, he
strengthened and added biographical as well as terminological information although the publisher didn’t
like it at all. So the differences between EB and Brockhaus seem not to be haphazard, but somewhat caused
by national traditions.
But I should not end without stating that obviously there are quite a lot of conformities and analogies in
the representation of content. Middle age and structuralism, the threat to crocodiles by men and the
indication of early cultural achievements of Chinese, Arabs, Egyptians and other antique peoples are more
or less similar. Where one finds slight divergences, they might result from anything but from a national
point of view.
3 Part 3: Lexicography: European, national, global?
Finally I will draw a conclusion in counting the arguments pro and contra a European dimension of
lexicography. None of the ten topics I dealt with lacks to show a European aspect, all of them seem to
support the idea of a European space of knowledge provided by lexicography. Only the last one, the
question of content, reveals some nation specific traditions, but I do not know yet if the three or four
main and well known national traditions – the French, the British, the Italian and the German – are
received in all other countries of Europe and maybe worldwide or if the smaller countries have developed
their own encyclopaedic manners. In fact, lexicographic research is regrettably restricted to three or four
10
10
of many European countries – I really would like to know more about all the others, maybe by starting a
common project based on a really broad concept of Europe.
While, on the one hand, ‘Europeaness’ seems to be very obvious, one has to admit, on the other hand,
that some of the topics I have discussed tend more or less distinctly to global validity. The development of
language competencies, scholarly discourse, technical, medial and economic conditions – they all might
have been of European origin, but are actually spreading all over the world. Globalization started ‘here’;
America was its multiplicator. Finally, a globalized knowledge returns to Europe and is glokalized to
European countries as we can find it in the variety of Wikipedias.
The study of lexicography tells us that there is no continuous separation of national traditions in writing
reference works. Instead, cultures merge;
6
and lexicography plays a significant role in the process of
merging. I really would like to analyze how the lexicographic discourse and practice became a European
one and later on a global one and if both, the lexicography and the knowledge of the future will be more
and more glokalized or something else? One cannot do this on one’s own, so why not start a real
European project bringing together the big and the smaller countries and their lexicographic landscapes in
order to find the answers to all questions I had to leave open.
6
As Ilja Trojanov and Ranjit Hoskoté illustrate in their book challenge refusal (Kampfabsage, 2007)
11
11
4 References:
Adelung, Johann Chr. (1793–1801): Grammatisch-kritisches Wörterbuch der Hochdeutschen Mundart. 2nd ed., 4
vol.
Albert, Claudia (1995): Imitation de la nature? Probleme der Darstellung in der Encyclopédie. In: Eybl et al. 1995, 200-
214.
Albrecht, Wolfgang (1995): Aufklärerische Selbstreflexion in deutschen Enzyklopädien. In: Eybl et al. 1995, 232-254.
d‘Alembert, Jean Le Rond (1750/1989): Einleitung zur Enzyklopädie. Discours Préliminaire de l’Encyclopädie. Hrsg.
und mit e. Essay von Günther Mensching. Aus dem Französischen von Annemarie Heins. Revision dieser
Übersetzung von Günther Mensching. Frankfurt/M.
Antweiler, Christoph (2009): Heimat Mensch. Was uns alle verbindet. Hamburg.
Bandur, Markus (2004): Stichwort Musik. zur Problematik der Darstellung von Fachwissen in Enzyklopädien des 18.
Jahrhunderts. In. Stammen/Weber 2004, 233-244.
Biesterfeld, Hinrich (2004): Enzyklopädie und belles-lettres im arabisch-islamischen Mittelalter. In: Stammen/Weber
2004, 71-80.
Creamer, Thomas E.B. (1991): Chinese Lexicography. In: Wörterbücher. Dictionaries. Dictionnaires. Ein
internationales Handbuch zur Lexikographie, ed. by Franz Josef Hausmann, Oskar Reichmann, Herbert ernst
Wiegand and Ladislav Zgusta. Vol. 3, Berlin, W. de Gruyter. (Handbücher zur Sprach- und
Kommunikationswissenschaft; 5), p. 2595-2612.
Crusca: Vocabolario degli Accademici della Crusca, Florenz 1612.
Brockhaus. Die Enzyklopädie in 24 Bänden. 20. Ausg., Leipzig, Mannheim 2001
Darnton, Robert (1993): Glänzende Geschäfte. Glänzende Geschäfte. Die Verbreitung von Diderots Encyclopedie
oder wie verkauft man Wissen mit Gewinn? [Aus dem Engl. und Franz. von Horst Günther]. Berlin, Wagenbach.
Diderot, Denis and d’Alembert, Jean le Rond (1751-1772): Encyclopédie ou Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des
arts et des métiers. Paris.
Dorn, Nico (2008): Zedlers Universal-Lexicon und das Problem seiner inhaltlichen Erschließung. In: Schneider
2008, 183-190.
Elkar, Rainer S. (1995): Altes Handwerk und ökonomische Enzyklopädie. Zum Spannungsverhältnis zwischen
handwerklicher Arbeit und „nützlicher“ Aufklärung. In: Eybl et al. 1995, 215-231.
Engler, Rudolf (2000): Die Accademia della Crusca und die Standardisierung des Italienischen. In: History of the
Language Sciences / Histoire des sciences du langage / Geschichte der Sprachwissenschaften. An International
Handbook on the Evolution of the Study of Language from the Beginnings to the Present / Manuel international
sur l'évolution de l'étude du langage des origines à nos jours / Ein internationales Handbuch zur Entwicklung der
Sprachforschung von den Anfängen bis zur Gegenwart. Herausgegeben von Edited by / herausgegeben von / edité
par Sylvain Auroux, E. F. K. Koerner, Hans-Josef Niederehe, and Kees Versteegh. Teilband 1. Berlin, de Gruyter,
(Handbücher zur Sprach- und Kommunikationswissenschaft; 18) p. 815-827.
Enciclopedia italiana di scienze, lettere ed arti (1929–1937). Rome. 35 volumes.
Encyclopædia Britannica (1768 – 1771)
Encyclopaedia Britannica. De luxe edition. online 2002. (1994-2002)
Ersch-Gruber (1840/1971) Allgemeine Encyklopädie der Wissenschaften und Künste, hg. von J. S. Ersch und J. G.
Gruber, Erste Section, A-G, 34. Theil, Nachdruck der Aufl. 1840:Graz 1971.
Eybl, Franz M.; Wolfgang Harms, Hans-Erik Krummacher und Werner Welzig (Hgg.) (1995): Enzyklopädien der
Frühen Neuzeit. Beiträge zu ihrer Forschung. Tübingen, Niemeyer.
Gardt, Andreas (1999): Geschichte der Sprachwissenschaft in Deutschland. Vom Mittelalter bis ins 20. Jahrhundert.
Berlin, de Gruyter.
Gardt, Andreas (1999a): Sprachpatriotismus und Sprachnationalismus, in: A. Gardt, U. Haß-Zumkehr, Th. Roelcke
(Hrsgg.): Sprachgeschichte als Kulturgeschichte, Berlin, 89-113
Gardt, Andreas (2000): Sprachnationalismus zwischen 1850 und 1945, in: A. Gardt (Hg.): Nation und Sprache. Die
Diskussion ihres Verhältnisses in Gegenwart und Geschichte. Berlin, 247-271.
Gerhard, Anselm (1998): Die Rolle der Musik in den enzyklopädischen Wörterbüchern des 18. Jahrhunderts. In: Das
12
12
achtzehnte Jahrhundert, Heft I/Jg. 22, 1998, 40-51.
Grimm, Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm (1852 – 1960: Deutsches Wörterbuch. Leipzig 32 Vol.
Haß, Ulrike (ed.) (2011, forthcoming): Große Europäische Wörterbücher und Lexika. Berlin, de Gruyter.
Haß-Zumkehr, Ulrike (1995): Daniel Sanders. Aufgeklärte Germanistik im 19. Jahrhundert. Berlin, de Gruyter.
Haß-Zumkehr, Ulrike (2001): Deutsche Wörterbücher – Brennpunkt von Sprach- und Kulturgeschichte. Berlin, de
Gruyter.
Haß-Zumkehr, Ulrike (2004): Hermann Pauls ‚Principien der Sprachgeschichte‘. Von der ersten zur zweiten Auflage.
In: Gerda Haßler, Gesine Volkmann (Eds./ Hrsg.): History of Linguistics in Texts and Concepts/ Geschichte der
Sprachwissenschaft in Texten und Konzepten’, Vol. I. Münster, Nodus, 277-284.
Haywood, John A. (1991): Arabic Lexicography. In: Wörterbücher. Dictionaries. Dictionnaires. Ein internationales
Handbuch zur Lexikographie, ed. by Franz Josef Hausmann, Oskar Reichmann, Herbert ernst Wiegand and Ladislav
Zgusta. Vol. 3, Berlin, New York, W. de Gruyter. (Handbücher zur Sprach- und Kommunikationswissenschaft; 5), p.
2438-2448.
Hohrath, Daniel (2004): Die Beherrschung des Krieges in der Ordnung des Wissens. zur Konstruktion und
Systematik der militairischen Wissenschaftem im Zeichen der Aufklärung. In. Stammen/Weber 2004, 371-386.
Jacoby, Michael (1990): Historische Lexikologie zum nordgermanischen Raum. Lexika als Kultur- und
Sprachdokument zwischen Mittelalter und Neuzeit. Wiesbaden, Harrassowitz.
Jansone, Ilga (2003): Entwicklung der lettischen Lexikographie von G. Mancelius bis zu elektronischen
Wörterbüchern. Lettische Lexikographie im 17. Jahrhundert. In. Zeitschrift für Literaturwissenschat und Linguistik
Heft 129/Jg. 2003 (Thema: Litauen und Lettland), p. ??????
Johnson, Samuel (1755): A Dictionary of the English Language. In which the words are deduced from their originals,
and illustrated in their different significations by examples from the best writers. London.
Jorio, Marco (2004): Die Geschichte der Enzyklopädie in der Schweiz seit dem 17. Jahrhundert. In:
Stammen/Weber, 105-117.
Keiderling, Thomas (2009): Von der Querstraße zum Johannisfriedhof. Bibliographisches Institut und F. A.
Brockhaus werden zu Grabe getragen. In: Leipziger Blätter 54/2009, 76-77.
Kiesow, Rainer Maria (2004): Die Ordnung des juridischen Wissens. In: Stammen/Weber 2004, 59-70.
Kirkness, Alan (2007): Wörterbuchschreiber als Wörterbuchbenutzer. Die Lexikographie Jacob Grimms und
Wilhelm Grimms im europäischen Kontext. In: Brüder Grimm Gedenken 17/2007 (forthcoming, Ms.)
Kleinert, Andreas (1998): Die deutschsprachigen physikalischen Wörterbücher des 18. Jahrhunderts – Johann Samuel
Traugott Gehler und Johann Carl Fischer. In: Das achtzehnte Jahrhundert, Heft I/Jg. 22, 1998,
Littré, Émile (1863–1872): Dictionnaire de la langue française , 4 vol., Paris, Hachette.
Malmgren, Sven Göran (2005): The lexicon of the Nordic languages in the 19th century, In: Oskar Bandle, Kurt
Braunmueller, Ernst Håkon Jahr, Allan Karker, Hans-Peter Naumann & Ulf Teleman (Hgg.), The Nordic
Languages. An International Handbook of the History of the Nordic Languages. Vol. 2. Berlin, de Gruyter
(Handbücher zur Sprach- und Kommunikationswissenschaft 22, 2.), p. 1443-1453.
Monnson, Odd (2005): Nationalism and Scandinavism in the development of the Nordic languages in the 19th
century. In: Oskar Bandle, Kurt Braunmueller, Ernst Håkon Jahr, Allan Karker, Hans-Peter Naumann & Ulf
Teleman (Hgg.), The Nordic Languages. An International Handbook of the History of the Nordic Languages. Vol. 2.
Berlin, de Gruyter. (Handbücher zur Sprach- und Kommunikationswissenschaft 22, 2.), p. 1453-1468.
Munske, Horst Haider/Kirkness, Alan (Hrsg) (1996): Eurolatein. Das griechische und lateinische Erbe in den
europäischen Sprachen. Tübingen.
Passow, Franz(1819-1823): Handwörterbuch der griechischen Sprache, 1st ed. Leipzig.
Passow, Franz (1812): Über Zweck, Anlage und Ergänzung griechischer Wörterbücher. Berlin, Maurer.
Pörksen, Uwe (1999): Brauchen wir eine vergleichende europäische Sprachgeschichte? Latein als Hintergrund und
Untergrund unserer Wissenschaftssprache. in: Sprache und Sprachen in den Wissenschaften. Geschichte und
Gegenwart. FS für Walter de Gruyter & Co. anläßlich einer 250jährigen Verlagstradition. Hrsg. v. Herbert E.
Wiegand. Berlin, p. 638-667.
Raun, Alo (1991): Lexicography of the Uralic Languages IV: Estonian and Livonian. In: Wörterbücher. Dictionaries.
Dictionnaires. Ein internationales Handbuch zur Lexikographie, ed. by Franz Josef Hausmann, Oskar Reichmann,
13
13
Herbert ernst Wiegand and Ladislav Zgusta. Vol. 3, Berlin, de Gruyter. (Handbücher zur Sprach- und
Kommunikationswissenschaft; 5), p. 2392-2395.
Remenyi, Maria (2008): „Popularisierung“ und „Wissenschaft“ – ein Gegensatz? Die mathematischen
Wissenschaften und ihre Vermittlung im 18. Jahrhundert. In. Schneider 2008, 347-354.
Schmalstieg, William R. (1991): Lexicography of the Baltic Languages I: Lithuanian, Old Prussian. In: Wörterbücher.
Dictionaries. Dictionnaires. Ein internationales Handbuch zur Lexikographie, ed. by Franz Josef Hausmann, Oskar
Reichmann, Herbert ernst Wiegand and Ladislav Zgusta. Vol. 3, Berlin, de Gruyter. (Handbücher zur Sprach- und
Kommunikationswissenschaft; 5), p. 2351-2354.
Schmidt-Biggemann, Wilhelm (1995): Enzyklopädie und Philosophia perennis. In: Eybl et al. 1995, p. 1-18.
Schmid, Wolfgang P. (1991): Die Lexikographie der baltischen Sprachen II: Lettisch. In: Wörterbücher. Dictionaries.
Dictionnaires. Ein internationales Handbuch zur Lexikographie, ed. by Franz Josef Hausmann, Oskar Reichmann,
Herbert ernst Wiegand and Ladislav Zgusta. Vol. 3, Berlin, de Gruyter (Handbücher zur Sprach- und
Kommunikationswissenschaft; 5), p. 2354-2361.
Schneider, Ulrich Johannes (2004): Die Konstruktion des allgemeinen Wissens in Zedlers ‚Universal-Lexicon‘. In.
Stammen/Weber 2004, p. 81-101.
Schneider, Ulrich Johannes (Hg.) (2008): Kulturen des Wissens im 18. Jahrhundert. Berlin, de Gruyter.
Schneider, Ulrich Johannes (2008b): Enzyklopädien des 18. Jahrhunderts. Einführung, in: Schneider 2008, p. 159-
162.
Schneider, Ulrich Johannes (2008c): Der Aufbau der Wissenswelt. Eine phänotypische Beschreibung
enzyklopädischer Literatur. In: Schneider 2008, p. 81-100.
Seifert, Hans-Ulrich (2008): Krünitz online. Planung und Realisierung der digitalen Ausgabe von Johann Georg
Krünitz‘ Ökonomisch-technologischer Enzyklopädie. In: Schneider 2008, p. 173-182.
Simpson, John (2004): Will the Oxford English Dictionary be more ‚European‘ after its first comprehensive revision
since its first edition of 1884-1928? in: Miscelánea. A journal of English and American studies 29 (2004), p. 59-74.
Sledd/Kolb (1955/1974): James H. Sledd and Gwin J. Kolb: Dr. Johnson’s Dictionary. Essay in the Biography of a
Book. Chicago 1955. Reprint 1974.
Stammen, Theo; Wolfgang E. J. Weber (Hgg.) (2004): Wissenssicherung, Wissensordnung und Wissensverarbeitung.
Das europäische Modell der Enzyklopädien. Berlin (Akademie-Verlag).
Thum, Bernd (2009): Geisteswissenschaften und Technik auf dem Weg zu neuen Wissensräumen, in: Jürgen
Maaß/Bernd Thum (Hgg.): Deutsche Hochschulen im Dialog mit der arabischen Welt. Beiträge zur Tagung des
Wissenschaftlichen Initiativkreises Kultur und Außenpolitik (WIKA) Karlsruhe, 19. und 20. Juli 2007
(=‚Wissensraum Europa – Mittelmeer‘. Hg. v. Kurt-Jürgen Maaß, Hans-Peter Schütt und Bernd Thum; 1) Karlsruhe,
p. 75-93.
Trojanov, Ilja/Ranjit Hoskoté (2007) Kampfabsage. Kulturen bekämpfen sich nicht – sie fließen zusammen. Aus d.
Engl. von Heike Schlatterer. o.O., Blessing.
Vannebo, Kjell Ivar (2005): The impact of education and literacy on language development in the 19th century. In:
Oskar Bandle, Kurt Braunmueller, Ernst Håkon Jahr, Allan Karker, Hans-Peter Naumann & Ulf Teleman (Hgg.),
The Nordic Languages. An International Handbook of the History of the Nordic Languages. Vol. 2. Berlin & New
York: Walter de Gruyter 2005. (Handbücher zur Sprach- und Kommunikationswissenschaft 22, 2.), p. 1397-1406.
Venås, Kjell (2005): General tendencies in Nordic language cultivation and language planning. In: Oskar Bandle,
Kurt Braunmueller, Ernst Håkon Jahr, Allan Karker, Hans-Peter Naumann & Ulf Teleman (Hgg.), The Nordic
Languages. An International Handbook of the History of the Nordic Languages. Vol. 2. Berlin & New York: Walter
de Gruyter 2005. (Handbücher zur Sprach- und Kommunikationswissenschaft 22, 2.), p. 2013-2024.
Wiese, Meike (2010). Zur lexikografischen Methodik eines Musiklexikons von 1732 im europäischen Kontext.
Schriftliche Hausarbeit im Rahmen der Ersten Staatsprüfung für das Lehramt an Gymnasien und Gesamtschulen.
Universität Duisburg-Essen (unveröff. Ms.)
Eduard Wölfflin (1893), Plan zur Begründung eines Thesaurus linguae latinae, in: Archiv für lateinische
Lexikographie und Grammatik 8, 1893, p. 621-625.
Eduard Wölfflin (Hrg.) (1884-1908), Archiv für lateinische Lexikographie und Grammatik 1-16, 1884-1908.
Zgusta, Ladislav (1991): Jacob Grimm’s Deutsches Wörterbuch and other historical dictionaries of the 19th century
(Dvitiyaikakosyam): Kirkness, Alan, Peter Kühn, Herbert E. Wiegand (Hg): Studien zum Deutschen Wörterbuch
von Jacob Grimm und Wilhelm Grimm, Bd. II, Tübingen, Niemeyer, p. 595-626.