The Historical Thesaurus of English (HTE)
Primary tabs
Grant Holder:
Professor Christian Kay
The Historical Thesaurus of English is the first historical thesaurus to be compiled for any of the world's languages. It includes almost the entire recorded vocabulary of English from Old English to the modern period, taken from the Oxford English Dictionary and dictionaries of Old English. The distinctive, semantically-structured hierarchy of the HTE data allows scholars access to material in a uniquely flexible manner, making it an invaluable resource to historians and linguists in particular. The project was completed in 2008 and published as the Historical Thesaurus of the OED by Oxford University Press in 2009. It will be linked to the online OED in December 2010.
The Historical Thesaurus of English (HTE) offers scholars unique materials for the study of the history of the English language. It includes almost the entire recorded vocabulary of English from Old English to the modern period, arranged in chronological order in a semantically-structured hierarchy. It resembles works like Roget's Thesaurus in that words are arranged according to their meanings rather than listed alphabetically. It differs, however, from any other thesaurus so far produced by listing obsolete words and obsolete meanings of current words as well as treating contemporary English comprehensively. It also has a new system of classification suited to a large body of historical material. The Thesaurus of Old English (TOE) supplements the data of the HTE and can be used as a discrete resource in the form of an online searchable database.
Generation of HTML files from XML data for web-delivery
| Project start date: 1965-01 | Project end date: 2008-07 |
Subject domains:
Country/region(s):
| Methods used | Category |
|---|---|
| Data modelling | Data structuring and enhancement |
| Text encoding - descriptive | Data structuring and enhancement |
| Searching and querying | Data analysis |
| linguistics | Discipline |
| text | Content types |
Funding sources:
British Academy, Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), The Carnegie Trust, The University of Glasgow, The Leverhulme Trust
Content types created:
Dataset/structured data, Text
Software tools used:
Microsoft Access, MySQL, PHP, dbase, ingres, Apache
Source material used:
English vocabulary from Old English (c700 A.D.) to the present. The data are drawn from the Oxford English Dictionary, its supplements, and dictionaries of Old English.
Digital resource created:
Database with around 750,000 word meanings, representing the English vocabulary from Old English (c700 A.D.) to the present, arranged according to their meanings and dates of use.
The data can be searched in a variety of ways. The basic search is Browse, which allows you to examine the vocabulary for a particular section, for example Music. A more targeted Synonym Search enables examination of a narrower concept, such as all the terms used for a trumpet. You can also narrow your searches by choosing particular dates or date ranges, such as all words with a first occurrence between 1450 and 1650, or stylistic labels, such as slang or Scots. Wildcard searches mean that compounds and derivative forms are retrieved, and there is also the facility to search on affixes. If a word has more than one meaning, you will be invited to choose the appropriate heading to search under. When you reach the wordlist, entries appear in chronological order, with your search term highlighted in red. Results can be saved by copying to a Word file or equivalent. Navigation is via the back button or the title.
Access to digital resource:
Open Access
Data Formats created:
dBase Database (DBF), Hypertext Markup Language (HTML), Microsoft Access Database (MDB), MySQL, Text file (TXT)
Publications:
Thesaurus of Old English online:
A pilot online version, prepared under an AHRC ICT Strategy grant, can be seen at:
Oxford University Press published the paper version, Historical Thesaurus of the OED, ed. Christian Kay, Jane Roberts, Michael Samuels and Irene Wotherspoon, Oxford, 2009.
Kay, Christian and Jane Roberts, 'Definitions for a New Age', Poetica 62, 2004, 53-68.
Kay, Christian and Jeremy Smith (eds), Categorization in the History of English, Amsterdam: Benjamins, 2004.
Kay, Christian and Irene Wotherspoon, 'Turning the Dictionary Inside Out: Some Issues in the Compilation of Historical Thesauri', A Changing World of Words: Studies in English Historical Semantics and Lexis, ed. Javier E. Diaz Vera, Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2002, 109-35.
A pilot online version, prepared under an AHRC ICT Strategy grant, can be seen at:
Oxford University Press published the paper version, Historical Thesaurus of the OED, ed. Christian Kay, Jane Roberts, Michael Samuels and Irene Wotherspoon, Oxford, 2009.
Kay, Christian and Jane Roberts, 'Definitions for a New Age', Poetica 62, 2004, 53-68.
Kay, Christian and Jeremy Smith (eds), Categorization in the History of English, Amsterdam: Benjamins, 2004.
Kay, Christian and Irene Wotherspoon, 'Turning the Dictionary Inside Out: Some Issues in the Compilation of Historical Thesauri', A Changing World of Words: Studies in English Historical Semantics and Lexis, ed. Javier E. Diaz Vera, Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2002, 109-35.
Institutions affiliated with this project:
| UK HE institutions involved: |
|---|
| University of Glasgow |
| UK HE institutions involved: |
|---|
| King's College London |
Project staff and expertise:
| Principal staff member: | Professor Jane Roberts; Professor Christian J Kay; Professor M.L Samuels; Mrs Irene Wotherspoon |
|---|---|
| Other staff: | Computing officer(s) / Technical supporter(s) |
| External expertise: |
| Metadata on this arts-humanities.net record | |
|---|---|
| Author(s) of record | Christian Kay |
| Title | The Historical Thesaurus of English (HTE) |
| Record created | 2007-03-29 |
| Record updated | 2010-06-23 12:31 |
| URL of record | http://www.arts-humanities.net/node/2244 |
| Citation of record | Christian Kay: The Historical Thesaurus of English (HTE). <http://www.arts-humanities.net/node/2244> created: 2007-03-29, last updated 2010-06-23 12:31 |