FREDRIC T. DOLEZAL
Dictionaries are artifacts that represent the cultural, bibliographic, and linguistic heritage of a language community. All the ideological underpinnings, the tensions inherent in proposing the study of Englishes, the hierarchies of English varieties, and the very concept of the English language itself are revealed when we have to collect, identify, describe, and explain the printed and spoken linguistic evidence. These tasks, essential to the practice of lexicography, make the compilation of a dictionary of world Englishes a complex collaborative undertaking that can be years in the unfolding. Linguistic, literary, cultural, and even political considerations are brought to the foreground of our research, separately and intertwined, the moment we decide to record and explain the English language of a community of speakers (in some cases speakers and writers). The notion of legitimacy for pluralized Englishes (e.g. Kachru & Kahane 1995) largely rests upon the presence or absence of an authoritative text called “the dictionary,” the authority of which may depend on popular notions of the standard when applied to a language. Because the idea of a dictionary is so firmly rooted, even traditional, within the history of English and Englishes, there are certain expectations from users, lexicographers, and publishers that theorists and practitioners must observe and negotiate.
There are basic linguistic requirements that all dictionary projects must meet: for instance, in order to look up a word in a language, there must be a codified notion of “word,” “phrase,” and “clause” for the language being described. In languages that have been spoken, not written, or for which no norms or standards have been laid out, there must first be a comprehensive grammatical analysis of the language in order to determine the shape of words in the language (as a reflection of syntax and morphology). More precisely, there must be well‐motivated criteria to establish the canonical form of a word. In the case of underdescribed or undocumented Englishes, the prevailing cultural‐lexicographical expectations concerning the paradigms of English word classes are a central, if not exclusionary, influence on the formation of dictionary entry words (usually the canonical forms). Nevertheless, before a comprehensive dictionary of a variety of English can begin, there must be a grammatical description of the individual variety.
Dictionaries confer legitimacy upon a language as a comprehensive concept, or some part of a language, whether we call that register, dialect, lexicon or vocabulary, to choose some of the more common designations. “Legitimacy” can be understood as a shorthand for identifying and establishing the varieties of Englishes that are used in various locations around the world. English speakers have been accustomed to relying on dictionaries as not just a reference, or look‐up tool, but as an authority that tells us whether a certain locution is actually a part of the language: “Is it in the dictionary?” This attitude, common, for instance, in the United States, includes English speakers in the Outer Circle, for example, Bamgboṣe (2006: 118) and Baumgardner (2006: 254). The ordinary speaker relies on the presence or absence of a word or phrase in a dictionary as a marker of legitimacy. The situation may be somewhat different for would‐be speakers of English, but the proliferation of learners’ dictionaries provides an excellent, if unstated, introduction into the culture of English speakers, both past and present. In the case before us of lexicography and Englishes, the issue of legitimacy has primary importance.
Finding a word in “the dictionary” gives the user not only information but also confidence; when we find the word we are looking for in a dictionary, we are assured that our language usage has been confirmed, even anointed. Given this expectation built upon tradition, it should not be surprising that individual speakers of an English, that is, who identify their brand of English with a discernible community of speakers, would gain more confidence and assurance to find a comprehensive dictionary of their own separate and legitimate manner of speaking and writing. They would be led to believe that the English they speak is not merely a collection of odd phrases and words scattered throughout a “standard” or prestigious English dictionary, but a language with its own history and community. A dictionary is not a requirement for people to recognize themselves as part of a distinct set of English language users, but the presence of such a dictionary would undoubtedly seal the argument for the existence of a separate and equal English.
The circumstances and attitudes related above find expression in Butler (1997: 285) on selecting Southeast Asian words for the third edition of the Macquarie Dictionary. Pakir (1997: 175–179) elaborates and extends this theme by questioning for Singaporean English the value of “standards” as it has been developed in relation to “traditional Englishes” (Pakir 1997: 175–179).
The complexity behind corpus planning factors in Singapore arises from its multilingual situation which involves choice of languages and standards for them, as well as the influence of contact languages on the emerging variety of English. Although multilingual and multiracial Singapore has a local educated variety of English that is internationally intelligible, this variety has not been codified.
(Pakir 1997: 176–177)
Butler makes the point that an author who “is carried along by the tide of American English” has much more latitude “to parade a swag of words” from her dialect (in this case a writer of the Newfoundland dialect) than a writer “struggling in the small (but lively) tributary of Singaporean English,” who Butler says “has to argue a case just to use horn as a verb” (that is, “…horned him loud and long”). Undoubtedly, swag of words is underwritten by a dictionary entry.
In these circumstances it does help to be able to say that your words are in a dictionary. That sort of respectability carries weight with editors and publishers in these particular literary difficulties, and in general has more effect on the public perception of the validity of a variety than many words spent in linguistic theorising.
(Butler, 1997: 285, emphasis added)
The idea of a dictionary has such force that the very act of collecting words and phrases and then printing them in alphabetical order with definitions begins to establish another traditional expectation; that is, once a language is distributed and arranged according to the normal practice of lexicography, users of that language develop, or begin to develop, the notion of a standard. Once the language appears not in narrative or discursive formats, but as a list of items, we cannot avoid thinking of the language as a set of rules; for ordinary speakers, the idea of “rules” may be expressed as “correctness.” Those who make dictionaries often have intentions that may conflict with the expectations of ordinary users. Dictionary makers generally describe their work as describing the language, while users generally look to a dictionary for guidance, thus emphasizing the dictionary as an authoritative arbiter and prescriber of correctness. Dictionaries, whether regional, national, or international, influence how the users perceive or understand the standard.
According to Zgusta (2006: 186), there are four ways in which dictionaries can influence the standard:
Zgusta notes that “many [if not most or all] dictionaries are typologically mixed” and that secondarily there are typological variations such that “others can be seen as connected with a cultural, literary, scientific movement, or with some change in society.”
How linguistic change is regarded by the dictionary maker underlies the decisions that result in a particular dictionary being of one type or another, or some mix of types. Of central interest to this topic is whether a dictionary of a regional or national variety of English proposes to establish a standard, or whether such a dictionary more narrowly proposes to establish a record of the language. The effect of making decisions concerning standardization and description results in how exclusive or inclusive the vocabulary selected for a dictionary is. Even dictionaries that are intended to record “nonnormal” usage, rather than to describe a discrete variety of English, have some influence on standardizing the usages, if for no other reason than the general expectations and attitudes of dictionary users. Dictionaries of regional varieties of English, when compiled, will eventually form their own subcategory of standardizing dictionaries.
The tensions inherent in the concept “Englishes” are not only highlighted when combined with the practical project of compiling a dictionary but must be answered or attended to, or the compiler will have no systematic method for collecting, describing, and presenting the language. Thus, the notions “standard,” “variety,” “regional,” etc. do not come predefined, but must be given definitions. The linguistic, cultural, and political conditions that are associated with a set of language users provide the linguistic, sociolinguistic, and pragmatic data upon which the lexicographer must devise his principles. The standard variety, and a text produced to exemplify it, does not require such a detailed accounting of education, background, birthplace, travels, or age of a user because the standard comprises all registers and a wide‐ranging vocabulary that no one English user can know. How we describe the divide between a standard variety and a regional variety depends largely upon how we account for linguistic change.
Lexicographers and linguists of the present time staunchly and quickly assert the naturalness of languages changing continually. However, the linguistic laity more likely views contemporary change as a falling away from the true, the original, and the pure. Linguistic change has special significance for speakers whose cultural, ethnic, or political identity is largely defined by the variety of language they use. Susan Butler succinctly describes the situation as it is felt by speakers of Australian English (or Australian, as is reported). Australians ask (Butler 2001: 153–154), “Have we kept our hold on our own special language or is it slipping away from us?” Butler calls our attention to the divide between the coolly scientific calm (“no cause for alarm”) and the more ordinary notion that greets linguistic change (“Change in our own lifetime … is equated with decay and corruption”).
Though Butler does not make this point in particular, the “alarm” associated with “decay and corruption” can be found expressed by language theorists and lexicographers in English literature since at least the seventeenth century. The alarm over losing “identity” reveals more about the attitudes towards language use of people and communities in our own time.
Dictionaries can have an influence on how people make individual decisions on language use. In the case of Englishes that are newly collected and codified, the dictionary compiler can choose just how much guidance a dictionary user requires or is seeking. Selection of information (how many varieties outside the standard are listed?) and setting notes and labels for usage have been common methods for providing a key to norms, standards, and “acceptable” usages. Lexicographers negotiate these difficult decisions by relying on reported usage and matching that with some notion of the needs of the user; this of course begs the question when considering an English that has not been adequately documented. Deciding upon the number and type of usage labels, if any, requires the lexicographer to balance the descriptivist purity of the linguist with the sociolinguistic reality of the dictionary user.
Picking up a dictionary and using it answers a felt need. Dictionary users commonly and quite naturally look up a word in a dictionary only for a particular reason; in fact, many dictionary users consult a dictionary for advice on usage. Beyond any need to identify with one group or another, there is a need to communicate, which gives rise to the need for mutual intelligibility and codification. A dictionary must first answer the communication needs of the users of a language. Rightly or wrongly, many if not most speakers and writers of a language assume that there is “good” usage and “bad” usage.
Linguists sometimes set the issue of usage labeling in the broader question of so‐called prescriptivism vs. descriptivism. Because of the pejorative denotation ascribed to prescriptivism – and usage labels are considered by some users to be prescriptive notes – dictionary makers are thrown into the arena of considering who decides the norms, standards, and codification within the sociolinguistic reality of the language community being described. Allsopp (1996) in the “Introduction” to the Dictionary of Caribbean English Usage provides a succinct account of the questions that need to be answered in a section called “The Need for a Norm.” He notes that the Dictionary of Jamaican English, while being an acclaimed “scholarly achievement,” does not address the “everyday needs” of a dictionary user of a “national standard language”; in this regional dictionary the appeal is to historical principles, not the intuitions of the native speaker. Allsopp lays out questions concerning how a dictionary that includes the English spoken in 12 independent nations makes judgments about each people’s “linguistic entitlement to a national standard”:
What is the right/wrong national way to speak? May local or regional usage be formally written? By what criteria is acceptability to be judged, and acceptability to whom – Britain, North America, the “international” community, other Caribbean states, teachers? … What spellings shall be determined (and by whom) … What terms are unparliamentary, libellous, offensive? What norms, what guide must national examiners and those on the (then emergent) Caribbean Examinations Council observe?
(Allsopp 1996: xix)
In a dictionary, usage notes and labels may be just what a dictionary user would like to find; after all, to describe the pragmatic meaning of a word or phrase will always appear prescriptive. People who consult dictionaries do not just want answers to questions, they want authoritative answers. However, we must note that a dictionary that attaches labels (vulgar, colloquial, dialect, etc.) without a discussion of how a word is determined to need a label or an explanation of the judgments that underlie the label leaves the decision mostly to the user. On the other hand, a dictionary that supplies usage notes in the form of explanatory discussions that elaborate upon usage labels makes explicit what labels only imply. There are no commonly accepted usage or status labels, so each dictionary compiler decides how much to leave to the user and how much to make explicit. The statement in A Dictionary of South African English (Branford 1980: xxi) that “[n]o scheme could possibly hope to fit this shifting and unstable ground [the difference between colloq. and slang]” epitomizes the tentative self‐consciousness surrounding labels in dictionaries.
An account of the use of labels in English dictionaries can be found in an article by Frederic Cassidy (1997). There is also a thematic section on dialect labeling in the same volume. The higher the level of notes and labels, the more likely it is that a dictionary will be regarded as prescriptive and, perhaps, even engaged in language planning. Usage notes and labels must be understood not only by frequency, or whether supported by few or detailed explanatory notes, but also by the status of the language being documented. Dictionaries for languages that have a well‐established standard or norm will normally avoid the more directive use of labels and notes. Can an authoritative description of a variety of English language find acceptance among users who do not share perceptions of “correctness,” and “good” and “bad” versions of their English? The descriptive and explanatory adequacy of a dictionary does not in itself promote an attitude of legitimacy for the language being described.
In the case of the lexicography of Englishes, much of what we understand about standards, norms, and the like will rely on the various perspectives that have been established for identifying the varieties of Englishes. Kachru’s Three Circles model serves as a useful tool when considering standardization and codification (see Kachru 1985). Any dictionary of an Outer Circle English must always contend, culturally, commercially, and ideologically, with the long‐standing lexicographic traditions of the two recognized global standards, British and American English. The bilingual dictionary tradition must also be regarded as highly influential on the development (or lack) of a world Englishes lexicography; clearly, the development of Englishes and their respective lexicons (and their linguistic systems) can be profitably studied as case‐studies of language contact.
The scholarly literature on lexicography and world Englishes has continued to increase over the past 20 or so years, but it is still a relatively undeveloped research field (see Further Reading below for a wide selection of the existing literature). Actual dictionary projects or proposals have been well documented with insightful notes and commentaries by Manfred Görlach in his series of “Englishes” volumes (1991, 1995, 1998) and can also be found within some of the articles cited in the reference section; there are also comments upon and a listing of national and regional English dictionaries by Richard W. Bailey (2009) and an overview of Caribbean English dictionaries by Jeannette Allsop (2009); Görlach rightfully questions whether most projected dictionaries of Englishes have either the institutional support or the commercial viability necessary for beginning and finishing the arduous and lengthy tasks associated with dictionary making. Görlach indicates the obstacles:
to launch such projects requires not only the existence of a norm in the eyes of more than just linguistic experts, but also a belief in such a regional standard among ministries of education and school boards.
(Görlach 1991: 40)
Kachru (1983), in one of the earliest commentaries and surveys on dictionaries for Englishes of the “nonnative varieties,” including the varieties in South Asia, Southeast Asia, South Africa, and West Africa, makes a case for the importance of cultivating studies of the lexicon and the production of dictionaries; though he too points to the difficulties inherent in any attempted dictionary project:
One cannot say that research in this area has been neglected purely for lack of interest; other reasons … the magnitude of the undertaking … time factors and financial implications, naturally discourage scholars. Furthermore, there is the general attitude toward these varieties which has by and large not been conducive to scholarly work in this area.
(Kachru 1983: 188)
In the intervening decades we can see that Kachru’s suggestion that the cautious and even hostile attitudes towards nativized varieties of English were undergoing a slow change was correct. As it turns out, the work on dictionaries of the English‐as‐a‐first‐language varieties of world Englishes, specifically dictionaries compiled in Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and the Caribbean, has helped promote scholarly work on the nonnative varieties of English. To a degree, the compiling of dictionaries of national and regional identity stands as a major argument to the world of standard Englishes that the variety of English being described does indeed exist as a standard variety itself. However, for there to be an acceptance of a variety as something more than a “different” way of speaking the standard, there must be “confidence and consistency” (Nelson 1992: 336):
For Indian English to assume an ascendant place in the world, the attitudinal allegiance of the users of Indian English must be such that they can say to themselves and to the world, “I am a speaker of Indian English. I do not aspire to be indistinguishable from a British or American speaker. English as I know it and use it serves my needs.”
In this case, a dictionary for Indian English would not establish an identity of “Indianness” but would support the identity and existence of a separate and equal English, that is, Indian English.
We find a passage in the “Introductory Remarks” of Hobson‐Jobson (Yule & Burnell 1968 [1886]) attributed to “Burnell’s fragment of intended introduction” that neatly summarizes prevailing attitudes towards Indianized English. The condescending, even contemptuous, tone joins with the collection of names for local flora, fauna, and cultural artifacts that comprise what one conventionally might expect to find in a dictionary of localisms and regionalisms, as well as a compilation of exotica:
Considering the long intercourse with India, it is noteworthy that the additions which have thus accrued to the English language are, from the intellectual standpoint, of no intrinsic value. Nearly all the borrowed words refer to material facts, or to peculiar customs and stages of society, and, though a few of them furnish allusions to the penny‐a‐liner, they do not represent new ideas.
(Yule & Burnell 1968 [1886]: xxi)
Even with these remarks and comments (among many others) that are jarring to our twenty‐first‐century sensibilities, the compilers of Hobson‐Jobson, by hook or by crook, worked within a still recognizable tradition of lexicography: names of flora and fauna and customs constitute much of what we find and expect in dictionaries of Englishes “struggling in a small tributary.” The voice of the “native speaker” (though this concept is always fraught with practical and theoretical difficulties) may not be evident in Hobson‐Jobson, but the compilers supply relatively lengthy encyclopedic information from specialists (leaving aside questions of our retrospective confidence in them) when defining specialist vocabulary (customs, laws, even etymology). Kachru (1983) has this to say in his chapter “Toward a Dictionary”: “In its methodology, though not in its attitude toward Indian English, Hobson‐Jobson is a healthy break from the tradition of earlier lexical research on this variety of English” (Kachru 1983: 172; see also Kachru 2005).
All the same, we also find that even this lexical achievement is limited by lack of an authoritative theoretical model, “but [the earlier lexicographical research] provides a substantial source of data” (Kachru 1983: 169). The same might be also said of much of the current state of world Englishes lexicography (theory and practice are at a more informed level in our time, but compiling “a substantial source of data” describes much of the value of any lexicographical research). In the same book, Kachru provides a survey of “Earlier Lexicographical Research,” with commentary and descriptions of glossaries and dictionaries of South Asian English (Kachru 1983: 169–177). He also considers lexicographical research of other “minority forms,” including African English and Caribbean English.
In the preceding brief sample of attitudes of a bygone era, we can draw lessons that are central to any dictionary project, especially those that would collect, describe, and explain a heretofore undocumented variety of English. A language variety is not the sum of its “exotic” parts. Thus, we note a backing away from the glossary tradition in current dictionaries of world Englishes because “[d]ialect dictionaries tend…to over‐invest in three particular areas: flora, fauna and the more ephemeral colloquialisms” (Branford 1980: xvi). From the perspective of accentuating the different, it would almost seem that a variety of English is nothing more than hybrid and substandard word forms, the consequence of contact with another language, that are simply integrated with, or added to, the standard.
An approach that regards only “colorful words,” folk taxonomies of flora and fauna, and so‐called deviations from the standard may produce a well‐documented, limited vocabulary of a certain group of English speakers, but it will fall short of being a description of the language as used by speakers representing all perceived levels of the language. No matter the size of the community of speakers, any variety of a language will be divisible into subvarieties. Thus, the methods and practice of identification and selection of linguistic items, along with an appreciation of language change, will be an important measure by which one can determine the scope, legitimacy, and authenticity of a dictionary. In this context, Butler (1997: 276) advocates the primary authority of the “native speaker”: “we should hold the need for ultimate decisions about inclusion or exclusion in the dictionary to be made by native speakers or we will lose some essential lifeline to truth.” She also is quite aware of the limitations of native speaker intuition; suffice it to say, when describing and explaining an English as “non‐native English,” we must question the ideology of “the native speaker.” The lexicography of world Englishes creates a challenge to redefine, change, or reaffirm commonly held linguistic attitudes and ideas.
The dictionary tradition in English is so strongly and comprehensively developed that we must look at how traditional English lexicography influences, or could influence, dictionaries of Englishes outside the circle of American and British standard Englishes. There is coverage of “outlying” Englishes in the major British and North American dictionaries; however, the coverage is neither systematic nor comprehensive. Nevertheless, any dictionary project regarding a regional or local English will depend on the mass of lexical and syntactic information already available in the standard dictionaries of English. The major dictionaries, which now include dictionaries of Australian English, depend in their turn on any intensive research into vocabulary and grammar of regional and local Englishes. The economic facts have thus far made it more likely that the British, North American, and Australian dictionaries of English will expand their repertoires outside the Inner Circle – alongside of, or in place of, comprehensive regional and local dictionaries. There are already efforts to create international corpora of English(es); as always, the meaning of “international” is open to discussion: in the past “international” meant British, North American, and Australian, but there is now an awareness among publishers that they should expand their definition and thereby expand their market. The latest international corpora of English are collaborative projects that depend on individuals from a wide range of English‐using communities throughout the world collecting and analyzing data from their respective local sources, who then send their findings along to a central databank.
Another source of competition for English dictionary markets is the well‐developed tradition of English learners’ dictionaries and the related promotion of English as an international language. If the perceived needs of an English‐using community are met by one of the “standard” dictionaries of English, or even by learners’ dictionaries of English, then there will not be the necessary intellectual, social, or economic demand that would underwrite the time and resources needed to undertake and complete a major dictionary publication. There have even been attempts to internationalize English by reducing the language to the “basics”; the best‐known attempt was Charles K. Ogden’s (1940) Basic English, which still has some adherents seventy‐some years after the publication of his dictionary. Basic English serves the needs of global communication by simplifying the vocabulary of English for use in scientific, industrial, and commercial transactions that are generally task oriented. Undoubtedly, the idea of a “basic” English levels all Englishes; however, while the effect may be to compete with the growth of regional or local Englishes, it is not inherently a challenge to the use and documentation of any variety of English. One is an (artificial) English designed for specific purposes across all language communities, the others are (natural) ordinary Englishes that develop or “decay” according to the communicative and expressive needs of the users, which may not include complete “mutual intelligibility” with other regional or local Englishes.
At this juncture, it will be useful to mention some of the general and specific works on lexicography and world Englishes. For an excellent analysis of the practical and theoretical dimensions of lexicography, especially in the context of developing local, national, or regional economies, we recommend a standard of lexicography, Zgusta (1970). The Macquarie Dictionary (Delbridge 1987a: 11–42) has a series of insightful articles that explain the theoretical and practical concerns (e.g. needs, pronunciation, vocabulary, history) of constructing a comprehensive dictionary of a national variety of English that will be highly useful for understanding similar lexicography projects of regional and local varieties. Also very useful is the front matter of dictionaries of Canadian English (Avis 1967; Story, Kirwin, & Widdowson 1982; Pratt 1988; Paikeday 1990; Barber 1998; Casselman 2006), South African English (Beeton 1975; Branford 1980, 1987; Asomugha 1981; Mesthrie 1992), Caribbean English (Collymore 1955; Anthony 1977; Holm & Shilling 1982; Mendes 1986; Valls 1990; R. Allsopp 1996; J. Allsopp 2009; Winer 2009), and of Australian (Baker 1941; Wilkes 1978; Delbridge 1984, 1987a; Turner 1984, 1987; Jonsen 1988; Moore 1999; Lambert 2004) and New Zealand English (Burchfield 1986; Orsman 1989; Deverson & Kennedy 2005). The idea of “a dictionary upon historical principles” (Mathews 1951) provides the structure for some of the South African (Dore, Mantzel, Muller, & Wright 1996; Silva 1996), New Zealand (Orsman 1997), and Australian (Ransom 1988) dictionaries; the Dictionary of Jamaican English (Cassidy & Le Page 1967) also stands in this tradition. An English without a history, that is, with little in the way of historical and reliable documents, will be more likely to affect the approach to Caribbean English, a usage dictionary (R. Allsopp 1996).
We supply a list of relevant dictionaries and related texts in the reference section at the end of this article. For a census and commentary on the widest range of dictionaries and projects under the heading of “new” Englishes, there is a series of volumes by Manfred Görlach. He noted that “no progress” had been reported on a proposed dictionary of West African English, or Singaporean English, nor can “much progress…be expected as far as the lexicography of [Indian English] is concerned” (1998: 186). We should note that one can find evidence of a lexicography of Singaporean and Malaysian English among other Southeast Asian Englishes (see Choo 1984; Eng 1984; Imm 1984; Lugg 1984; Lee 2004). Current work on lexicography and the Englishes of Asia continues, and we can be sure of reports on progress and even of completed projects. For an earlier and more general and historical overview, see Görlach (1991: 36–68; 1995: 124–163; 1998: 152–186). All these volumes have chapters on various of the issues addressed in this chapter. Görlach emphasizes the scholarly approach to lexicography but fairly evaluates commercial or amateur projects. For a broad understanding of the dictionary projects, attempted, completed, and contemplated, these volumes remain informative reference tools. Those interested in ongoing and newly developed or developing lexicographical projects can look into the publications of scholarly organizations such as ASIALEX, AFRILEX, and other regional lexicographically oriented societies. Furthermore, comprehensive commercial and scholarly dictionaries of English are currently expanding their selections of a wide variety of world Englishes.
The history of English lexicography may provide the most pertinent lessons for the future of the lexicography of world Englishes. The first recognized monolingual English dictionary was not a comprehensive dictionary of Jacobean English, but a dictionary of “hard usuall English words” (Cawdrey 1604: title page), which relied on bilingual Latin‐English dictionaries, glossaries, and books on rhetoric for its selection of vocabulary. Within 60 years there were dictionaries that collected proverbs and dialects found in the British Isles; and soon there were dictionaries of ordinary English and slang. Obviously, the expansion and development of early English lexicography relied on available print artifacts (pamphlets, books, newspapers, glossaries, etc.) and on field research. The growth of English lexicography was, not coincidentally, in historical parallel with the growth of English grammars and rhetorics. What has become a publication industry began as authors working on sometimes competing entrepreneurial projects. The language being described, or even prescribed and proscribed, reflects the culture in which a dictionary appears. The expectations of many people that a dictionary provides us with correctness and what is normal and standard and good are held fairly closely. The appearance of a dictionary in an exonormative language community will meet a reluctant audience unless scholars and well‐informed entrepreneurs collect data, and produce an oral history, a literary canon, and a fully‐fledged grammar. Successful English dictionaries are not just reference tools; they are also informative, entertaining, and sometimes irritating books that raise our awareness of language and people and culture.