Henry Sweet wrote that he was obliged to arrange his Anglo-Saxon dictionary upon the request of delegates from Clarendon Press, who sought an abridgement to the Bosworth and Toller edition of 1892.
Undertaken in what Sweet admitted was ‘(his) best within a limited space and limited time’, he was able to produce his dictionary within a reasonable amount of time and ‘kept within reasonable limits of space’.
Sweet drew upon previous classifications of Professor Joseph Botsworth’s edition of 1838, criticizing it for its lack of scrutiny; alongside critiquing Etmuller’s Lexicon Anglosaxonicum and Leo’s Angelsachsisches Glossar, and Dr. Clark Halls A Concise Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, released around the same time.
Sweet had previously published glossaries, such as the Anglo-Saxon Reader and Oldest English Texts.
Difficulties in Compiling an Archaic Dictionary The difficulties of Anglo-Saxon lexicography, as outlined by Sweet, were- and remain, to a large extent- material reliance upon a limited source of documents, mostly ill-kept and eroded the elements.
Since these manuscripts were copied by Latin speaking scholars, the issue meant, up until Sweet, no long-term tradition of linguistics and lexicographers had provided substantial and scrutinized scholarship to determine any accurate authority on the Anglo-Saxon language.
Another difficulty entailed the interspersion of Latin words and the subsequent rendering of Latin meanings, of a given Anglo-Saxon definition. The question over whether or not a particular word in the manuscript was Anglo-Saxon English, but indeed a Latin misspelling? An example Sweet provides refers to an unnamed editor’s selection of resuanas, as the OE gloss of ineptias- this being an misinterpretation of the prefix res, to mean res vanas.
To be assured in the search for the roots of Anglo-Saxon words, one must tarry with caution in considering whether the word has not been ‘displaced’, meaning no longer, or never possessing trace or relation to a Latin cognate. Sweet infers ‘The connexion between the English gloss and its original is often very vague’: furthering, ‘the Latin words are often misspelled beyond recognition, and even when correctly spelt often cannot be found in any Latin dictionary, either classical or medieval’.
For the investigator of Old English, he concluded, ‘(is often) obliged to work by guesswork until someone one else guesses better, and to be thankful for the occasional ray of light’.
So as doubt is followed by caution, Sweet reveals his guard to the readers: 'to whom these glossaries are only subordinate sources of information’ against potential margins of error. In this case, in specific definitions, he plants (?) for uncertainty, with bracketed initials for glossary reference; ‘The doubtfulness of a word is greatly increased when it occurs only once’. According to Sweet, the period of ‘Transition-English’ occurred from 1100 to 1200 AD. This marked a significant phase between Old and Middle English. Collections by Kludge Lesebuch and Assmann Homilien outline specifically ‘Late Transition’ examples. Sweet suggests ‘late forms get into the glossaries to these books, whence they are copied by uncritical compilers’.
Many ‘Late Transition’ English words were included within his dictionary, primarily on two counts: firstly, by chance they may indeed be older, or earlier than currently presupposed. Secondly, their general significance, ‘the continuity and great importance to the Chronicle’. Further considerations arise in the use of unnatural words, predominantly derived from translations. Guilty of an ‘over-literal rendering of Latin words’, which Sweet warns ‘are not confined to interlinear translations’, but are instead ‘unmeaning compounds (...) manufactured for the sake of illieration’.
Compiling a concise dictionary, Sweet deemed it necessary to follow ‘strict principles of selection’: to omit the least and inconsequential essentials, and take stock of the most consequential.
‘The test of a dictionary is not the number of words it contains, but the fullness of treatment of the commonest words’
A dictionary provides the meaning of words in plain, brief Modern English, attempting to ensure that words are not mere reputations of other-words, in referential meaning. However, the ambiguity of many words in English makes it difficult for any editor to produce specific meaning without delineating to definitions, but instead, referring to quotations.
Sweet employs quotations & idioms when concise definitions prove limited or obsolete statements. He exhibits ‘direct explication’, meaning a definition condensed by a phrase. His dictionary provides only Anglo-Saxon cognates with occasional reference to the origin language of a given word.
To end with, spelling is worth a particular mention. Many of the head-words (i.e.the word preceding explanation) are formed in ‘Early West-Saxon’ spelling. An example of the West-Saxon æ, corresponds to Anglian and Kentish e, but Sweet prioritizes the West-Saxon spelling over all, as one is dæd (not ded).
Upon reflection, Sweet deemed his dictionary ‘good from a practical point of view’ but due to the conditions of its arrangement and production, commented ‘must fall far short of ideal requirements’.
He concluded that ‘we may almost venture on the paradox that a good dictionary is necessarily a bad one’
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