History of the English Language

Local Reference Resources

• Dictionary of Old English
  Main site for the project to write a definitive dictionary of the English language up to the eleventh century.

• Lexicons of Early Modern English
  LEME searches and displays word-entries from monolingual English dictionaries, bilingual lexicons, technical vocabularies, and other encyclopedic-lexical works, 1480-1702. Texts of word-entries whose headword (source) or explanation (target) language is English tell us what speakers of English thought about their tongue in the period. Edited by Prof. Ian Lancashire, this publication contains over half a million word entries in 150 searchable lexicons, supported by extensive primary and secondary bibliographies.

•   The English Language: A Historical Reader.
  Edited by A. G. Rigg. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1968. This textbook for the teaching of the history of English offers annotated specimen passages, arranged so that students can compare versions of the same text in Latin, Old English, Middle English, Early Modern English, and Present-day English.

• Helsinki Corpus
  The first diachronic corpus of the language, from Old English to the 18th century. Access restricted to users from "utoronto.ca" or "utoronto.edu" domains.

•  Oxford English Dictionary Online
  Electronic database of the great historical dictionary, for those interested in what a word meant at a particular time in history, or in finding the earliest recorded use of a word. Access restricted to users from "utoronto.ca" or "utoronto.edu" domains.

• History of the English Language Links (HELL), by Professor Carol Percy.
  A list of links to on-line resources for the study of the English language and its history.

Web site by Dennis G. Jerz and Ian Lancashire Last modified: April 10, 2001

University of Toronto English Library Ian Lancashire (Director)