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Information Sources and Services

Notes e.g. some outstanding author or some notable literary or other event. Works from all the
periods are selected for the dictionary. The lexicographer has to see that all the periods in the
history of a language are given due and even attention.

Notes No period should be left without proper representation; otherwise it would be
impossible to find a coherent semantic development of a lexical item.
It has been contended whether a dictionary like OED, which deals with all the periods of the
history of the language, can be a true historical dictionary. It is suggested that it would provide
more scientific and accurate account of the history of the words of a language if a particular
period is taken up and a detailed analysis of all the works of that period is done, rather than
taking total history and divide it into some periods and then making generalizations. For this
Period Dictionaries dealing with some particular period may be prepared. A dictionary dealing
with the entire period of the history of the language may not do justice in presenting full picture
of the semantic history of the lexical stock of language.
The second point a lexicographer has to keep in mind while selecting works for a historical
dictionary is to see that all the subject fields are equally and evenly represented in the corpus of
the dictionary.

Notes For this representative works of all the branches of human knowledge available in
the language should be analysed. Variation of region, style and subject matter should be
carefully marked and entered in the dictionary.

The Sanskrit Dictionary (Poona) has used 1500 books as its source material. Malayalam Lexicon
has utilized 7000 works in addition to manuscripts etc. besides these works; even the available
dictionaries can be utilized. Kannada Dictionary (Bangalore) analysed 2000 books and all available
inscriptional material.
The etymological dictionary, as stated earlier, traces the present word to its oldest form and
gives the parent form. The interest of an etymological dictionary is primarily in the pre-history
of the language. For arriving at the parent form the lexicographer takes recourse to historical
comparative method, wherein on the basis of recurring correspondences of form and meaning
of words in different cognate languages, the protoword form or etymon is reconstructed.
In some cased even when the dictionary does not give reconstructed protoforms it may be
considered etymological. In these cases a particular point in the development of a language is
fixed as a terminal point and the etymologies are traced back to that point. For Indo-Aryan
languages this point may be Sanskrit hypothetical or reconstructed forms are given. Sometimes,
though it is not scientific, the nearer attested forms are given as the source word.

Did u know? Some dictionaries give only the cognate forms e.g. Dravidian Etymological
Dictionary.
The etymological dictionaries have been classified in several categories on the basis of the range
of coverage, the number of languages covered etc. the most common is the one which classifies
the dictionaries on the fact whether the focus of the dictionary is a single language or many
languages. The dictionary with one language as focus deals with the lexical items of one language.
The entry of the dictionary is given in that language. The origin of the words of this language is

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