Linde’s dictionary
A landmark in Polish lexicography
Samuel Linde (1771–1847), author of the first major monolingual dictionary of Polish, was a native speaker of German. This, together with the complex political situation in which his work originated and proceeded – in Leipzig, Warsaw and Vienna – led to many doubts not only as to the author’s linguistic competence, but also regarding his national allegiance and political sympathies, an aspect not unimportant in an era when Poland did not exist as an independent political entity. Despite all this, the finished 4-volume work (Warsaw, 1807–1814), whose compilation, production, content and structure are discussed in this paper, has proved to be of lasting importance for Slavic lexicography.