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The first ever English dictionary, maybe…
For anyone interested here’s a very abbreviated rough list of the first ever dictionaries, summarised from Wikipedia:
- First Sumerian-Akkadian word list is dated around 2300 BCE.
- The first surviving monolingual dictionary is Chinese and from 3rd century BCE.
- First Arabic dictionary was from 8th century.
- The oldest surviving Japanese dictionary is from 835.
- The word dictionary was invented by an Englishmen in 1220. There are English-Latin, English- French and English-Spanish bilingual dictionaries from this time.
- First Latin dictionary was published in 1440.
- The first alphabetical English dictionary was published in 1604.
- A Spanish, Italian and French dictionary were published ~1611.
- The first American dictionary was completed in 1825.
I would have thought there would be dictionary of hieroglyphics before any of them, but if there was it hasn’t survived.