Noah Webster
Noah Webster, familiar to most Americans as the writer of the first American dictionary, worked as a schoolteacher in the late eighteenth century. As he taught, he came to realize that there were some major problems with the way English was taught in the American schools. The United States of America had recently declared its independence from England, and was struggling to form its own identity. The schools were still using textbooks from England, and these books varied in consistency when it came to spelling, pronunciation and grammar (Short Summary Website). As a teacher, and as a patriot, Webster felt a need for an American textbook. He wanted consistency and he wanted it to reflect that there was an American dialect of English that was distinctive from that of England (Bett Website). He had also noted that the social classes of England were often distinguished by differences in dialect, and he wished the United States to have a single, distinctive dialect that would rise above differences in class (Bett Website).
As a result of these goals, in 1783 he published A Grammatical Institute of the English Language. This textbook, later republished in 1788 as The American Spelling Book, standardized spelling and grammar for the American dialect. The preface to the speller states his objective for the speller as
"To diffuse a uniformity and purity of language in America, to
destroy the provincial differences that originate in the trifling differences of
dialect and produce reciprocal ridicule, to promote the interests of
literature and the harmony of the United States…" (Blue-Backed Speller
Website).
The new speller, nicknamed the "blue-backed speller" for the blue paper that lined the...
... middle of paper ...
...ax, rather than trying to dictate how the language should be spoken. Finally, it served to standardize spelling throughout the new nation with a distinctive American twist. Without the contributions of Noah Webster, the American language might look very different than it does today.
Bibliography:
Bett, Dr. Steve T. Home page. Noah Webster - a short biography. .
Millward, C. M. A Biography of the English Language. 2nd ed. Boston: Holt, Rhinehart & Winston, 1996.
Noah Webster Gets a Web Site. 23 Sept. 1997. .
Noah Webster's "Blue-Backed Speller". Blackwell Museum. 1995.
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Noah Webster's Original American Dictionary of the English Language, 1828.
Common Law by LEXREX. 1998. .
A Short Summary of Noah Webster's Life. Noah Webster House. Feb. 1996.
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"Webster, Noah." Encarta Online Encyclopedia. Microsoft.
Winchester, Simon. The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary. New York: HarperCollins, 1998. Print.
Noah Webster—an 18th century American patriot, copyright pioneer and author of a dictionary that sustains his name centuries later. Born in West Hartford, Connecticut in 1758, Webster is known both for fighting in the American Revolution and for his position as being a strong advocate for the Constitutional Convention. His admiration of valiant creative people and their regard for the preservation of their civil ideals was surpassed by the feeling of lament at how hesitant they could be when it came to the protection of their own interests. Intensely believing in the development of the United States’ cultural independence, he realized the necessity of a fundamental element of a unique American language with its own style, pronunciation and idiom (White 5). In 1806, Webster published A Compendious Dictionary of the English Language, the first true American dictionary and Webster’s first small lexicographical work. Subsequently, he went to work on his classic masterpiece, An American Dictionary of the English Language. He learned a total of 26 languages—including Anglo-Saxon and Sanskrit—in order to research the foundation of his own country's native tongue. Published in 1828, this book embodied a new pattern of lexicography. Its 70,000 entries surpassed Samuel Johnson's 1755 British masterpiece not only in scope but also in authority (King 73).
Murray, J. A., & Burchfield, R. W. (1933). The Oxford English Dictionary (Vol. 1): Clarendon Press Oxford.
Nathaniel is a magician’s apprentice. All apprentices live in their masters’ homes and their masters teach them magic, how to summon demons, and provide schooling for their apprentices. The also pick a name for them. The name is so that a magician or demon doesn’t find out what a person’s birth name because knowing someone’s birth name is a source of power to an enemy.
In this passage Webster displays the use of ethos which demonstrates to the audience the pride he has for his country and for the sacrifices patriots made during the Revolutionary war. “We are Americans. We live in what may be called the early age of this great continent; and we know that our prosperity, through all time are here to enjoy and suffer the allotments of humanity.” Webster is proud to be an American, and wants the fledgling republic to realize the
In “Do You Speak American?” by Robert MacNeil, MacNeil uses outside sources, personal anecdotes, and familiar diction in attempts to prove that the transformation of American English is a positive outcome and should be accepted.
Baron, Dennis. The English Language Amendment: Backgrounds And Prospects. 1988. ERIC. Web. 28 Nov. 2014.
Vaughan, Alden T. “Early English Paradigms for New World Natives.” American Antiquarian Society. 102:1 (1992) 33-67.
This book takes place in both the United States and London, so Winchester was able to not only know the information correctly, but also explain the ideas and customs of both places across the novel in great detail. He not only gives his readers information, but he provides a background to add credibility to his writing. That was one of the facts that caused me as a reader to keep reading and digging deeper into this book. Journalism was not all he did though, he also liked to study astronomy, was into cider-making, and stamp-collecting (“Welcome) as pointed out in the article Welcome. Winchester published his famous book, The Professor and the Madman, in English in 1998. It makes sense that it would be published in English because the individuals that would most likely be interested in how the Oxford English Dictionary was created, are those who speak English. He probably acquired a much bigger range of audience with it published in English, then if it would have been published in any other
In Johnson’s preface to A Dictionary of the English Language, Johnson argues the importance of preserving language. Other dialects had a produced their own dictionaries, such as the French and Italians. Various writers of the eighteenth century were alarmed at the fact that there was no standard for the English language, since there was no standard it could easily become extinct. Johnson explored many points, such as how and why languages change as well as how many words are formed.
Americans during my grandparent’s generation faced a climate of global instability and fear of internal collapse experienced by other nations. After witnessing the collapse of governments and how anarchy bred tyrannies in countries such as Soviet Russia and Nazi Germany, Americans did not want to lose the freedoms and glory they had. Changes in government came about due to unrest in the populace. Americans wanted to avoid unrest out of fear of becoming a fascist or socialist nation. Fears of the unknown provided a need for stability and played a part in the susceptibility of Americans to the witch hunts during McCarthy’s campaign against American Communists. Americans in my grandparent’s generation would not want to interpret a text differently than the majority and risk being branded as a traitor. Conformity was mislabeled as harmony and “standard editions” of texts were seen as sig...
5. Johnson, Samuel. The Plan of an English Dictionary , 1747. Edited :jack Lynch. Downloaded on 22nd Dec https:// andromeda.rutgers.edu/jlynch/Texts/plan.html
This descriptive dictionaries characterize the language ,they have words that are commonly used if they are nonstandard , also they have nonstandard spellings .On the other hand , Prescriptive dictionaries resort to be anxious about standard English or correct ,they determine suitable usage and spellings of words .All today English dictionaries is descriptive .The dictionaries today are mixture of descriptive and prescriptive .Authors of sixteenth century such as John Hart select to characterize the pronunciation of educated speakers in and all London ,and also at this stage there was no try to force a standard pronunciation. In the late 18th century, the codification of pronunciation star, when Thomas Sheridan and John Walker produced obvious guides to correct pronunciation in the shape of pronouncing dictionaries. Walker was efficacious in setting standards for correct pronunciation. Many authors show the view that unity of language would raise the unity of the nation, English become a national language in Great Britain .The nineteenth century saw the beginning of descriptive linguistics but also brought a
The Political, social and cultural impacts on the English language during its Old English phase.