Cover not available
Article published In:
Historiographia Linguistica
Vol. 42:1 (2015) ► pp.21–38

Northern Ascriptions in MS Lansdowne 1033

George Hickes’s Dictionariolum Islandicum in Focus

| Universidad de Salamanca

This paper examines the contribution of the Dictionariolum Islandicum to White Kennett’s (1660–1728) unpublished Etymological Collections of English Words and Provincial Expressions (BL MS Lansdowne 1033). An expanded version of Franciscus Junius’s (1591–1677) Icelandic wordlist (Bodl. MS Junius 36), itself based on Runólfur Jónsson’s (c.1620–1654) Grammaticae Islandicae Rudimenta (1651), the Dictionariolum was included in George Hickes’ (1642–1715) Institutiones Grammaticae Anglo-Saxonicae et Moeso-Gothicae (1689). Comparison of the manuscript entries with the Dictionariolum suggests that Kennett relied on this work for a portion of the northern material contained in his manuscript. This paper aims to further our knowledge about the compilation of Kennett’s dictionary, casting some light on the sources behind the regional dialect material included, and on the history of northern English lexicon more generally as recorded in 17th-century dictionaries.

Published online: 26 May 2015
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/hl.42.1.02rua
References

A.Primary sources

Gibson, Edmund
1723–1728 Letters to Bishop Kennett from Dr. Edmund Gibson, Lord Bishop of London, from 1723 to 1728. British Library, Lansdowne MS 1017.Google Scholar
Hickes, George
1689 Dictionariolum Islandicum. Ex Vocabulis, quæ in Grammatica Islandica leguntur, Alphabetico ordine digestis, Conflatum. Institutiones Grammaticae AngloSaxonicæ et MoesoGothicæ ed. by George Hickes, 97–132. Oxoniae: Theatro Sheldoniano. (2nd ed. 1703–1705.)Google Scholar
1703–1705 [1 1689] Dictionariolum Islandicum. Ex Vocabulis, quæ in Grammatica Islandica leguntur, Alphabetico ordine digestis, Conflatum. Thesaurus Linguarum Septentrionalium ed. by George Hickes, 73–92. Oxoniae: Theatro Sheldoniano.Google Scholar
Junius, Franciscus
. c.1651 Islandica excerpta ex Runolphi Jonæ Islandi grammatica Islandicâ editâ Hafniæ. Bodleian Library, Oxford, MS Junius 36.Google Scholar
Kennett, White
. c.1696 Etymological Collections of English Words and Provincial Expressions. British Library, Lansdowne MS 1033.Google Scholar
1696 “Letter from White Kennett to Bishop Thomas Tanner, 13 November 1696”. Bodleian Library, MS Tanner 24, f. 212.Google Scholar
1696 “Letter from White Kennett to George Hickes, 19 December 1696”. Bodleian Library, MS Don. d. 88, p. 390.Google Scholar
1710 “Letter from Dr Wh Kennett in Vindication of Himself from the Rude and False Aspersions Cast upon him by the Rev Dr George Hickes in a Late Preface to his Second Collection of Controversial Letters &c. London”. Vol. C. of Bishop Kennett’s Collections: Containing minutes of some of Bishop Kennett’s letters and papers concerning the politicks, civil and ecclesiastical, of his time. British Library, Lansdowne MS 1034, ff. 7r-8v.Google Scholar
Osman, Mr. W.
18??. “A Transcript of White Kennett’s Glossary of Provincial Words […], Made for J. O. Halliwell, [before 1857]”. Bodleian Library, MS Eng lang. d. 67.
Ray, John
1674 A Collection of English Words not Generally Used. London: Printed by H. Bruges for Tho. Burral. (2nd ed. 1691.)Google Scholar
1691 [1 1674] A Collection of English Words not Generally Used. 2nd. ed. London: Printed for Christopher Wilkinson.Google Scholar
Somner, William
1659 Dictionarium SaxonicoLatinoAnglicum. Oxonii: Excudebat Guliel. Hall. pro Authore.Google Scholar
Wright, Joseph
1898–1905 English Dialect Dictionary. 61 vols. Oxford: Henry Frowde.Google Scholar
Zoëga, Geir Tomasson
1910 A Concise Dictionary of Old Icelandic. Germanic Lexicon Project ([URL]). Accessed: October 2014.

B.Secondary sources

Bennett, Jack Arthur Walter
1953 The History of Old English and Old Norse Studies in England from the Time of Francis Junius till the End of the Eighteenth Century. D.Phil. dissertation, University of Oxford.Google Scholar
Bennett, Gareth Vaughan
1957 White Kennett 1660–1728: Bishop of Peterborough. London: SPCK.Google Scholar
Cain, Christopher M.
2010 “George Hickes and the ‘Invention’ of Old English Dialects”. Review of English Studies 61:252.729–748. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Considine, John
2008 Dictionaries in Early Modern Europe: Lexicography and the making of heritage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Costain, Angelina
2009 George Hickes and the DanoSaxon Poetic Dialect: A translation edition of a section of Caput XXI, from the AngloSaxon Grammar of Linguarum Vett. Septentrionalium Thesaurus. M.A. dissertation, University of Saskatchewan.Google Scholar
Douglas, David Charles
1950 [1 1939] English Scholars, 1660–1730. London: Eyre & Spottiswoode.Google Scholar
Fell, Christine E.
1996 “The First Publication of Old Norse Literature in England and its Relation to its Sources”. The Waking of Angantyr: The Scandinavian past in European culture ed. by Else Roesdahl & Meulengracht S⊘rensen, 27–57. Aarhus: Aarhus University Press.Google Scholar
Fox, Adam
2000 Oral and Literate Culture in England 1500–1700. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Gardner, William Bradford
1955 “George Hickes and his “Thesaurus””. Notes and Queries CC: May.196–199.Google Scholar
Griffiths, Bill
2005 A Dictionary of the NorthEast Dialect. Newcastle upon Tyne: Northumbria University Press.Google Scholar
Harris, Richard L.
1983 “George Hickes, White Kennett, and the Inception of the Thesaurus Linguarum Septentrionalium ”. Bodleian Library Record 11:3.169–186.Google Scholar
1992 A Chorus of Grammars: The correspondence of George Hickes and his collaborators on the Thesaurus Linguarum Septentrionalium. Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies.Google Scholar
Hickes, George
1689 Institutiones Grammaticae AngloSaxonicae et MoesoGothicae. Oxford: At the Sheldon Theatre. (Repr., Menston: Scolar [sic] Press 1971.)Google Scholar
LEME: Lexicons of Early Modern English
2006– Ian Lancashire, ed. University of Toronto ([URL]). Accessed: August 2014.
Markus, Manfred & Reinhard Heuberger
eds. 2010– EDD Online. Universität Innsbruck. ([URL]). Accessed: August 2014.
McCabe, Shannon Morgan
2010  AngloSaxon Poetics in the Linguarum Veterum Septentrionalium Thesaurus Grammatico-Criticus et Archæologicus of George Hickes: A translation, contextualization and analysis . Ph.D. dissertation, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque.Google Scholar
ODNB: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
2004– ([URL]). Accessed: August 2014.
OED: Oxford English Dictionary
2000– ([URL]). Accessed: August 2014.
Penhallurick, Robert
2009 “Dialect Dictionaries”. The Oxford History of English Lexicography. Vol. II. Specialized Dictionaries ed. by Anthony P. Cowie, 290–313. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Pétursson, Magnus
2005 “The Development of Icelandic from the Mid-16th Century to 1800”. The Nordic Languages: An international handbook of the history of the North Germanic languages ed. by Oskar Bandle, Kurt Braunmüller, Ernst Håkon Jahr, Allan Karker, Hans-Peter Naumann, Ulf Telemann, Lennart Elmevik & Gun Widmark, vol. II1, 1258–1269. Berlin: De Gruyter.Google Scholar
Ruano-García, Javier
2009 “Looking for Regional Words in Late Seventeenth-Century England: Bishop White Kennett and his ignored glossary to Parochial Antiquities (1695)”. Sederi 191.151–176.Google Scholar
2010 Early Modern Northern English Lexis: A literary corpusbased study. Bern & Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang.Google Scholar
2013a “Bishop White Kennett’s Etymological Collections of English Words and Provincial Expressions: An unprinted source of regional vocabulary”. Periphrasis, Replacement and Renewal: Studies in English historical linguistics ed. by Irén Hegedűs & Dóra Pődör, 310–332. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.Google Scholar
2013b “Digging into the English Dialect Dictionary: The contribution of MS Lansd. 1033”. International Journal of Lexicography 26:2.176–189. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2013c “ ‘A Wiltshire Word, according to Kennett’: The contribution of MS Lansd. 1033 to Halliwell’s Dictionary of Archaic and Provincial Words (1847)”. Meaning in the History of English: Words and texts in context ed. by Andreas Jucker, Daniela Landert, Annina Seiler & Nicole Studer-Joho (= Studies in Language Companion Series, 148), 81–98. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2014a “Cumbrian Lexis in the English Dialect Dictionary: William Nicolson’s Glossarium Brigantinum (1677) in focus”. Dictionaries: Journal of the Dictionary Society of North America 351.162–186. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2014b In press. “On John T. Brockett’s Glossary of North Country Words: Notes on the reception of White Kennett’s Parochial Antiquities (1695) and MS Lansdowne 1033”. Notes and Queries 61:4, 536–542. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Shorrocks, Graham
2001 “The Dialectology of English in the British Isles”. History of the Language Sciences ed. by Sylvain Auroux, E. F. K. Koerner, Hans-Josef Niederehe & Kees Versteegh, vol. II1, 1553–1562, Berlin: De Gruyter.Google Scholar
Stein, Gabriele
2014 Sir Thomas Elyot as Lexicographer. Oxford: Oxford University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Vik⊘r, Lars S.
2005 “The Nordic Language Area and the Languages in the North of Europe”. The Nordic Languages: An international handbook of the history of the North Germanic languages ed. by Oskar Bandle, Kurt Braunmüller, Ernst Håkon Jahr, Allan Karker, Hans-Peter Naumann, Ulf Telemann, Lennart Elmevik & Gun Widmark, vol. II1, 1–12. Berlin: De Gruyter.Google Scholar