The Lexicography of Swedish and other Scandinavian Languages

Author： Malmgren Sven-Gran Skldberg Emma

ISSN： 0950-3846

Source： International Journal of Lexicography, Vol.26, Iss.2, 2013-06, pp. : 117-134

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Abstract

After a modest beginning with mostly Latin-Swedish and Latin-Danish glossaries, bilingual Scandinavian lexicography gradually developed in the 17th and especially the 18th century. Towards the middle of the 19th century, the first monolingual Danish and Swedish dictionaries were published somewhat late in an international perspective. Around 1900, work on monumental historical dictionaries of Swedish and Danish started. A similar Norwegian project started somewhat later. The Danish project was finished after 40 years; the Swedish more ambitious project will be finished in a few years. As is well known, the introduction of language corpora revolutionized lexicography. This is particularly true of lexicography in Sweden, where a monolingual corpus-based dictionary was published as early as 1986, one year before the COBUILD dictionary. In Denmark, an excellent corpus, including spoken language, was compiled in the 1990s, forming the basis of a six-volume monolingual dictionary now available on the Internet, with excellent search facilities. Likewise, corpus-based lexicography has enjoyed an increasingly strong position in Norway and Iceland.