The introductory essay discusses the relations between lexicography and history. Development of the meaning of ›history‹. History as a chain of events, or as their narration and elucidation: types of dictionaries connected with either. Sixteen case studies of dictionaries that reveal interesting ideological stances: antiquity, Greece medieval and modern, modern European Languages and societies. The planned development of Afrikaans from an transplanted variety of Dutch into a standard language of its own. The unifying role of dictionaries and of the script in the development of Chinese dialects and of the standard languages, classical and modern.

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