Historical survey of dictionaries of quotations and trends of their development

Olga Korobeinikova

Bratsk Branch of Baikal State University of economics and law

Historical survey of dictionaries of quotations and trends of their development

The history of dictionaries have been in the focus of many works in lexicography. The leading national lexicographical schools have been diachronically reviewed: English and American lexicography (Ступин, 1985), American lexicography in particular (Пикин, 1979), European lexicography in general (Hullen, 1989), Hungarian lexicography (Furedi, 1991), Russian lexicography (Вомпреский, 1989). A historical analysis of different types of dictionaries have been done: authors’ dictionaries (Карпова, 1992), bilingual dictionaries (Берков, 1973), dictionaries of usage. Different aspects of dictionaries have been also studied in their development: the entry, pictorial illustrations (Zgusta, 1989; Stein, 1991), their orthography (Ayto, 1992). But in spite of this abundance of works on historical lexicography very few of them touch upon dictionaries of quotations: the history of authors’ dictionaries of quotations is briefly outlined by O.M. Karpova (Карпова, 1992); the development of verbal illustration is mentioned in A. Cowie’s works (Cowie, 1992); some notes on the problem can be found in the work of V. Vomperskiy (Вомперский, 1989); some more information is given by A.M. Al-Kasimi, 1992).

Still the information available enables us to presume that dictionaries of quotations appeared firstly in the form of collections of proverbs beginning from the X-th century (Al-Kasimi, 1992). The first British dictionary of quotations dates back according to A.M. Al-Kazimi to 1779, the first American to 1885. The same tendency from collections to dictionaries proper can be observed in Russia where dictionaries of proverbs and sayings were very popular already in the XVIII century (Вомперский, 1989). Unfortunately the information we possess does not allow us to point out the exact time when collections of proverbs and quotations finally turned into dictionaries proper. We can suggest, however, that this process was determined by the general tendencies of dictionary development and ended in the XIX century. Dictionaries of quotations might be dated back to the first glosses and glossaries and to later prescriptive dictionaries of the XVI-XVIII centuries. These glossaries are known to have been collections of “difficult words” and margins notes from Latin manuscripts (Ступин, 1985; Hullen, 1989). It is worth suggesting that these notes might explain not only words but phraseological units, proverbs and even quoted sentences. Still these different types of linguistic units were mixed up in the forst glossaries which were not specialized as to the criterion of the linguistic unit under description. Prescriptive dictionaries were complete by their verbal illustration presented mainly by citations from the most remarkable authors of the past. The leading lexicographer of the XVIII century S. Johnson proclaimed the credo that one could master a language only after learning the language of the greatest writers of the past. These directions to follow the authoritized patterns seem to have been preserved in dictionaries of quotations when they have been rejected in general lexicography since prescriptive dictionaries gave way to registrating ones in the end of the XVIII century. The next century is remarkable for a great popularity of citations in speech of well-educated people. These popularity could not but stimulate compilation of dictionaries of quotations. In 1875 Durinsfelds finished their multi-lingual dictionary of proverbs which included the most widely spread proverbs and their equivalents in different European languages. In the middle of the XIX century authors’ dictionaries of quotations developed in the scope of authors’ dictionaries. They were explanatory dictionaries (Карпова, 1990). By the XX century dictionaries of quotations had developed as a new branch of lexicography. The information possessed allows to examine the development of dictionaries of quotations in the XX-th century more thoroughly. Dictionaries of quotations of the early XX-th century had the form of a glossary or an explanatory dictionary. That justifies to the fact that glossaries and explanatory dictionaries were a developed lexicographical form at that time. In fact Latin had lost its importance by this century and was excluded from general school programs, the epoch of mass culture supplanted that of well-educated elite. Consequently many classical allusions, references, phrases which had been known earlier turned out to need some explanation, hence, dictionaries of foreign words and phrases were compiled (Brewer E.C. Dictionary of Phrase and Fable. 14-th ed. rer. and corr.L, Paris & N.Y., 1896; Jones H. P. Dictionary of Foreign Phrase and Classical Quotations. Edinburgh, 1969). Even when monolingual, they contained a lot of Latin loans and borrowings which may be accounted for by the great significance of Latin culture for European countries. From linguistic point of view borrowings and foreign phrases have more extra linguistic connotations than other types of words and need additional explanation. Dictionaries of quotations in the form of a glossary included a wider variety of linguistic units in their corpus: they did not distinguish between citations and proverbs, contained also allusions, sayings, barbarisms and clichés. H.P. Jones, for instance, included such words and realia as “brief”, “damptboot” (German), “neglige”, “bureau” (French), “casino” (Italian) which all are not quotations proper. These different types of information are mixed together, the explanation in E.C. Brewer’s dictionary, for instance, includes etymology, definition proper, historical comments, interpretation of dictionaries of quotations which seem inseparable within its entries. There were no labels, the address is selective or there is no address.

Since the middle of the century concordances have become the dominating form of dictionaries of quotations. Dictionaries of quotations are compiled no longer on explanatory purposes but mostly in order to appreciate their readers. Headwords may be both words and proper names, the corpus became more specialized: it includes either citations or proverbs. There is a noticeable tendency to the further specialization of selected items on different criteria: humorous quotations (Esar E. The Dictionary of Humorous Quotations. Garten City, 1949), proverbs found in the American literature of 1820-1880 (Taylor A., Whiting B.J. A Dictionary of American Proverbs and Proverbial Phrases 1820-1880. Harvard Univ. Press, 1958), biographical quotations (The Dictionary of Biographical Quotations. L., 1978), poetical quotations (Allibone S. Austin Poetical Quotations from Chaucer to Tennyson. Philadelphia, Lippincott, 1874). The range of information becomes more limited and dofferent types of information are more orderly arranged within the entry: headwords, quotations, their address. The latter tends to completeness, except dictionaries of proverbs, as well as the information on authors. Indexes become the essential and compulsory part of dictionaries of quotations. American dictionaries of quotations appear to deal mainly with American English and American authors. The recent time is characterized by the development of some new types of dictionaries of quotations. Among these new highly specialized dictionaries of quotations we may mention the dictionaries of mottoes, slogans, allusions compiled in Detroit in 1983-1984 by Urbang (Urbang L., Abate F.R. Idioms and phrases. Detroit, 1983; Urbang L., Robbin C.D. Slogans. Detroit, 1983; Urbang L., Robbin C.D., Abate F.R. Mottoes. Detroit, 1984); the dictionary of picturesque expressions (Husinger W.M. Picturesque expressions. Detroit, 1983); some interesting Oxford publications (The Oxford dictionary of phrases, 1992; The Oxford dictionary of proverbs, 1992).

Nowadays dictionaries of quotations form an independent branch of specialized lexicography, authors’ dictionaries being the closest type of dictionaries to dictionaries of quotations. Authors’ dictionaries differ from dictionaries of quotations in the scope or range of information included, the purposes, completeness/ selectiveness of their corpus and have some opposite trends of development. Authors’ dictionaries tend to complete corpus and verbal illustration, dictionaries of quotations tend to a more specialized corpus; authors’ dictionaries tend to the form of analytical dictionary and try to label all kinds of linguistic information, dictionaries of quotations preserve their partially encyclopedic nature and their system of labels is not developed.

Dictionaries of quotations underwent two stages of development: the first stage is connected with collections of proverbs, the second is characterized by a developed lexicographical presentation of dictionaries of quotations. The lexicographical sources of dictionaries of quotations include besides collections of proverbs, first glossaries, prescriptive dictionaries, authors’ dictionaries. They developed either some tendencies common for all types of dictionaries, i.e. from multi-lingual glossaries and explanatory dictionaries to concordances. Modern dictionaries of quotations are characterized by the tendency to 1) the increasing number of quotations from political, philosophical, publicist sources; 2) to a more specialized corpus; 3) to the complete address and information on authors; 4) to more orderly arranged entries; 4) to some new forms though concordances still predominate.

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