Comments on: Some notes on Winchester, The Meaning of Everything

By: amelia

amelia — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 16:17:39 +0000

I think that the role of Christian missionaries in English imperialism is important to remember as well. By this time the Church of England was well separated from Rome, and the Bible had been translated into English, making it possible for the missionaries to present learning English as a means of accessing not only “cultural refinement,” but also the “Word of God.” I wonder how long it took to compile the King James Bible, how many people worked on it, and if they were subject to the same sorts of financial badgering that Murray and the other lexicographers suffered.

By: Judith

Judith — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 08:12:31 +0000

Although it’s not one of the stated questions, I was particularly interested by the “professionalization of lexicography” as mentioned in the Ch. 2 summary. Throughout the book, we are constantly reminded that Murray doesn’t have complete freedom over his work. Because the dictionary must ultimately sell & earn a profit, there are constant concerns about deadlines, sales and readership. In this sense, I wonder how much the dictionary reflects these various interests. To what extent were words excluded for fear of offending certain potential buyers? How many words were left out/given less extensive research in Murray’s haste to comply with publishers’ deadlines? Although the creation of the OED was motivated by a scholarly concern for accuracy and thoroughness, it was also essentially a business venture, a status that constrained these idealistic goals. Although we often view the lexicographer as much more than a “harmless druge”, perhaps even an imperial prescriptivist, he too faces serious restraints on his choices. As demonstrated by this book, a lexicographer does not have absolute power to shape language but must also cater to the public’s and publishers’ demands and expectations.

By: chestnut2

chestnut2 — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 06:02:49 +0000

Going to have to disagree with Charlie to an extent- I think this comparison entirely depends on the linguist in question. 1. Numerous linguists devote themselves to preserving languages that are in danger of dying out. 2. Many linguistics sub-fields are indeed devoted to the study of the “language of the mind.” Historical linguistics, however, also exists.

By: jes

jes — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 04:33:53 +0000

In reference to the Ch. 5 question: In order to make a dictionary, there needs to be a judge to declare the right and wrong spelling, definition, and usage. This judge needs to have the passion and complete assurance that (s)he is absolutely correct. I think that the OED needed the national pride for country and culture that came with the British domination. The British power extended over most of the globe, which would have reinforced the idea that the British English was the correct language and usage.
As a side note, I found the conflict about including â€œAfricanâ€ or â€œAmericanâ€ very interesting. The world order at the time was very influential over the inclusion of certain words. â€œAfricanâ€ was not included because it was a geographical proper name. However, â€œAmericanâ€ was included. While Africa still had significant European territories, it seems like it was left out not for any primitive or cultural quality associated with it, but rather the lack of an influential quality because this was the norm with geographic proper names. The reasons for including â€œAmericanâ€ are generally not politically motivated (to help explain other words like â€œAmericanizeâ€). However, the influence (or lack of) a particular culture on the British English would be tied to the opinions of that culture (was it looked down upon?), and that cultures interacts with Britain (was it as an equal or a territory?), and Africa and America fall into different categories.
My question is: was â€œBritishâ€ or â€œEnglishâ€ included in the first edition as well?

By: Charlie

Charlie — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 03:33:06 +0000

I think the easiest way to characterize the differences between â€˜early philological studyâ€™ and â€˜contemporary linguistic studyâ€™ is that the former was mainly diachronic whereas the latter is mainly synchronic. The whole OED project â€“ and the reasons for it â€“ show how linguists/philologists/scholars of the time were primarily interested in discovering and documenting how English came to its present (at the time) state. They wanted to know where words came from, how their spellings changed, how their meanings changed, etc. A big part of their ambitious goal of documenting all this information – aside from national pride and an attempt to boost English as a language of power, pride, and dignity â€“ was so that future generations would likewise be able to see the origins of the language and its development. I would say this is probably partly why linguistic study looks at language in a synchronic way â€“ we already have the diachronic perspective of English, its history and origins (as well as that of some other languages), well documented. Itâ€™s definitely more than that, though. Linguists today are undoubtedly less concerned with showing how individual languages came to their present state, and even less so with preserving languages as they are, which, one could argue, the OED was trying to do to some extent, but with explaining and examining how language as a whole works. To discover how our minds acquire, learn, and use language doesnâ€™t require looking at the growth of a language over time but simply on current language use (or, really, on language usage at any one point in time, but itâ€™s obviously much easier, not to mention effective, to study usage today). I think what it mainly comes down to is that a diachronic study of an individual language examines the affects of culture, politics, etc. on language, whereas a synchronic study of languages as a whole examines the fundamental workings of our minds with regards to language.

By: Ye Olde Steve

Ye Olde Steve — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 23:33:23 +0000

The scale of this project, especially considering the lack of computers, is mind boggling in its size. Imagining an entire office humming with people all busily simply trying to sort through tens of thousands of slips of paper sort of reminds me the comparison sometimes made that the apollo spacecraft had the computing power of a Furby. I wonder how this sort of thing would have worked today? The OED already had a sort of wiki feel to it with the participation of readers from around the world, and I wonder if this could have been the starting point of a modern OED. I was fairly confident about the ease at which we’d be able to do this in modern times until I just looked at Wikipedia, and found that the Swedish dictionary, 109 years later, and in the modern computer age for a good 15 years, is still only on T and is expected to be done in 2017, so maybe what’s really required is a good dose of mettle… Still, interesting to ponder what we’d do today.
@meghan Yeah, trying to codify languages definitely isn’t unique to the west, the Chinese have been trying to forever. In Middle chinese they made all sorts of Rhyme boards so people would know how to pronounce the characters and what not. And I seem to remember hearing something about the rules of sanskrit being laid down at some point, though I could just be making that up….

By: Stephanie

Stephanie — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 20:17:58 +0000

As a point of connection between the topics for chapters 2 and 5, it seems to me that lexicography could not possibly be professionalized until there was a clear desire somewhere in the culture for projects that required a lexicographer’s skill–like the OED. Winchester’s account gives plenty of incidences where, even after institutions like Oxford were on board with the dictionary project, there were arguments about whether it was “worth it” to continue and so forth. Looking at the OED even subconsciously as a part of Britain’s colonial “mission” may have been a way to justify the effort and the expense. It strikes me that the discovery of a common root between eastern and western languages *could* have been a reason to think the eastern peoples *didn’t* somehow need or deserve to be colonized. But the prevailing attitude of the time led to the interpretation that the common links were a justification for colonialism. The British imperialist project and British views on the language were inextricably related on some points. For example, there’s a lot in post-colonial literary theory about resisting the oppressor *in* “the language of oppression.” The codifying of the English prestige dialect could be seen as an extension of imperialist attitudes, then.

By: chestnut2

chestnut2 — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 05:10:48 +0000

not sure what you mean with that chapter 3 question…

By: meghan

meghan — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 04:48:21 +0000

This is in response to the last question posed in the post:

As we have seen from the evidence given by Winchester, inventories of language have taken place through history in many places around the world. France and Germany, for instance, made attempts at constructing dictionaries long before English-speaking peoples. It is possible that Winchester meant to suggest that perhaps a preoccupation with documenting language is a Western trait, or that language documentation and the desire to preserve standards is most prevalent in societies with a clear educated class to hierarchize language usage. Every language has unknown idiosyncrasies, and it is the inherent drive of humans to clarify what is unknown to them. Thus, I think that although we only have anecdotes from Western countries, the desire for language documentation spans all humanity and cultures, not just English.

By: K_eng

K_eng — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 01:39:03 +0000

In response to the topic from Chapter 5:
We have established in the class the notion of “language being power” early on. I believe it was a point that Wallace made in his paper in relations to the mastery of Standard English. In this case, the codifying of language in terms of a dictionary becomes a strong tool in for British Imperialism.
Language is an integral part of a culture. There is a certain set of vocabulary for customs, ideas, perhaps even feelings, which are unique to a culture and the people of that culture. One of the easiest ways to take over a culture would thus be to take away their language. This can be done indirectly, not by prohibiting them to use their language, but by presenting them with the incentive of gaining power via learning the language of the conquerors or by teaching their children.
By making the dictionary, then, Murray and his colleagues were blazing a new imperialistic path by hacking away a new path for conquest.The dictionary, thus becomes an handy weapon in neatly packaging English words and customs for ready distribution to any natives.
One could also view this period in English history as that of “language imperialism” as well. That is, while England was off conquering different countries, what was also taking place was the dominance of other languages worldwide by English. This was the beginning of the globalization of English which has only been furthered by technological advances as subsequent centuries passed.
I decided to research this a bit further and found an interesting article on the OED and its role in the rise and fall of English: http://www.abc.net.au/rn/arts/ling/stories/s67146.htm
as well as one on English and language imperialism if anyone is interested:http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9114488/ENGLISH-LANGUAGE-IMPERIALISM

That’s my opinion on this anyway, if any one has more knowledge on the topic, please feel free to respond.