Glossary

A glossary (Latin glossary, Greek γλωσσάριο glossario to γλῶσσα glossa "tongue", "Language" ) is a list of words with accompanying explanations or translations. The Latin word glossary designates as an object " book" ( ver) old (te) or foreign words explained.

Glossaries were created in antiquity and the Middle Ages by Glossographen ( " glosses writers " ) as collections in need of explanation words ( archaisms, dialect words, foreign words, see commentary ) for the grammar study and as a tool for the explanation of texts ( especially Homer and the Bible). Since late antiquity also created bilingual Greek-Latin and Latin- Greek glossaries, which served the mediation of each foreign language and the Latin Middle Ages, the starting point for the emergence of Latin and vernacular Glossaries formed ( Abrogans, Affatim Glossary ).

As lexicographic Genre incoming and bilingual glossaries form a precursor for the scale to full coverage of a vocabulary dictionaries, of which in the 18th century to the present day basic lexicon of vulgar and Medieval Latin by Charles You Cange as Glossarium ad Scriptores mediae et infimae latinitatis (1st ed Paris 1678) was titled. The glossaries of antiquity and late antiquity served already often the method of etymology, which seeks to derive a word or its components from similar sounding words to reveal such not only the origin of the word, but also the essential properties of the thing signified. They offered about next primary language in many cases also a high proportion of factual statements by which they were to be a precursor of encyclopedias. So the most effective for the most powerful medieval encyclopedia Etymologiae of Isidore of Seville, among other things, from late antiquity glossaries compiled.

In modern times a glossary in the field of philology and editorial techniques is usually a list of words with linguistic explanations that opens up the vocabulary of a text being edited and will be printed usually in the appendix to this text. A specialist linguistic or technical glossary lists the terminology of jargon or technical Subjects with conceptual and factual definitions to ensure the proper use of these terms and their clear understanding.