TheHistorical Thesaurus of English(HTE) is the largestthesaurusin the world. It is called ahistorical thesaurusas it arranges the whole vocabulary of English, from the earliest written records inOld Englishto the present, according to the first documented occurrence of a word in the entire history of the English language. The HTE was conceived and begun in 1965 by theEnglish Language&Linguisticsdepartment of theUniversity of Glasgow,who have ever since continued to compile the thesaurus. From the 1980s onwards the project was moved from paper-based records to a computerdatabase.
 | |
Type of site | Academic |
|---|---|
| Owner | University of Glasgow |
| Editor | Christian Kay,Marc Alexander,Fraser Dallachy, Jane Roberts,Michael Samuels,and Irené Wotherspoon (editors) |
| URL | www |
| Commercial | No |
| Registration | None |
| Current status | Version 4.21, since December 2016[1] |
Content licence | Free for personal and non-commercial research[2] |
Today, the HTE is available to the public online, but a print version, theHistorical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary(HTOED), was published in 2009.
Main project: The Historical Thesaurus of English (HTE)
editTheHistorical Thesaurus of English(HTE) is a completedatabaseof all the words in theOxford English Dictionaryand other dictionaries (includingOld English), arranged bysemantic fieldand date. In this way, theHTEarranges the whole vocabulary ofEnglish,from the earliest written records in Old English to the present, alongside dates of use.
It is the first historical thesaurus to be compiled for any of the world's languages and contains 800,000 meanings for 600,000 words, within 230,000 categories.[3][4]As theHTEwebsite states, "in addition to providing hitherto unavailable information for linguistic and textual scholars, theHistorical Thesaurusonline is a rich resource for students of social and cultural history, showing how concepts developed through the words that refer to them. "[5]
Structure
editThe work is divided into three main sections: the External World, the Mind, and Society. These are broken down into successively narrower domains. The text eventually discriminates more than 236,000 categories. The second order categories are:[6]
|
|
|
History
editThe ambitious project was announced at a 1965 meeting of thePhilological Societyby its originator,Michael Samuels.[7]Work on theHTEstarted in the same year.[citation needed]
In 2017, the University of Glasgow was awarded theQueen's Anniversary Prizefor Higher Education for theHTE.[citation needed]
A second edition of the online HTE is currently in progress and is expected to be launched in late 2020.[8]Work is released on the freely-availableHTEwebsite when available.[8]
Print edition: Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary (HTOED)
edit Print edition of version 1.0 of theHistorical Thesaurus of English[1] | |
| Author | Christian Kay, Jane Roberts,Michael Samuels,and Irené Wotherspoon (editors) |
|---|---|
| Working title | Historical Thesaurus of English |
| Language | English |
| Subject | History of the English language |
| Genre | Thesauri |
| Published | 2009 (Oxford University Press) |
| Publication place | Great Britain |
| Pages | 4,448 |
| Awards | Scottish Research Book of the Year Award,Saltire Society Literary Awards,2009 |
| ISBN | 978-0199208999 |
| OCLC | 318409912 |
| LC Class | PE1591.H55 2009 |
On 22 October 2009, after 44 years of work, version 1.0 of the HTE was published byOxford University Pressin a two-volume slipcased set as theHistorical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary(HTOED).[9]The two hardcover volumes together total nearly 4,500 pages.
References
edit- ^ab"Versions of the Thesaurus".The Historical Thesaurus of English.University of Glasgow.Retrieved15 October2019.
- ^"UsingHistorical ThesaurusData ".The Historical Thesaurus of English.University of Glasgow.Retrieved25 October2014.
- ^Woolcock, Nicola (6 July 2009)."After a 44-year labour of love worlds biggest thesaurus is born".The Times.London. Archived fromthe originalon 28 August 2011.(subscription required)
- ^Hitchings, Henry(23 October 2009)."Historical Thesaurus is a masterpiece worth waiting 40 years for".The Telegraph.London.Retrieved25 October2014.
- ^"Home page".The Historical Thesaurus of English.University of Glasgow.Retrieved15 October2019.
- ^"Classification".The Historical Thesaurus of English.University of Glasgow.Retrieved22 October2014.An oversize, one-page listing of all categories in top three tiers is available for download here.
- ^Crystal, David(2014).Words in Time and Place: Exploring Language Through theHistorical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary.Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. vii.ISBN978-0199680474.
- ^ab"Second Edition".The Historical Thesaurus of English.University of Glasgow.Retrieved15 October2019.
- ^"UK | England | Oxfordshire | Forty-year wait for new thesaurus".BBC News. 6 July 2009.Retrieved15 April2010.
External links
edit- "Search".The Historical Thesaurus of English.University of Glasgow.
