SomeoneElseMod, 10 months 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.