Noah Webster

Noah Webster ( born October 16, 1758 in West Hartford, Connecticut, † May 28 1843 in New Haven, Connecticut ) was an American lexicographer, spelling reformer, journalist, translator and writer. Most of the differences in the spelling of the U.S. against the British English go back on his reform.

Life

Webster came from an old Puritanerfamilie. Mother's side he was descended from William Bradford, the second governor of the Plymouth Colony. In 1774 he began studying at Yale University, which he did at the outbreak of the American War of Independence broke to fight in the militia of his father against the British. From his youthful enthusiasm for the independence movement grew his linguistic ideas of reform, the U.S. should also bring a cultural independence.

He was first a lawyer, but then teacher. 1788 Webster was involved in the short-lived attempt to establish a Philological Society in New York.

The Spelling Book

Webster's first release was the three-volume A Grammatical Institute of the English Language ( 1783-85 ), which consisted of a grammar, a spell checker and a fibula. The spell checker was later called The American Spelling Book a bestseller with a circulation of 60 million alone until 1890. Virtually all American school children learned from the Blue Backed Speller, as the book was called because of his blue COVER spelling.

Webster's dictionary

Webster published his first dictionary A Compendium Dictionary of the English Language, with around 28,000 entries 1806. Because he wanted to establish a "national language", he pushed through a new, simplified spelling, in which he stressed above all silent letters. So he replaced about color by color, a dash- l in traveler or changed center in center. Other proposals, like the last, silent e to remove from definite or feather, on the other hand not prevailed. In the UK, Webster met with vehement rejection of reforms.

A highly advanced, two-volume version of his dictionary was published in 1828 as An American Dictionary of the English Language, with around 70,000 entries. Mainly because Webster had received numerous words from science and technology, is about half of all keywords is not the appropriate British counterpart, Samuel Johnson's Dictionary of the English Language. The claim to be American, however, is based barely on the vocabulary, because up to a few words such as congress, caucus or plantation, most of the words were known in British English as well. Characteristic of the American dictionary tradition, founded Webster, are numerous encyclopedic information such as the names of cities or specifying the number of residents.

Webster's dictionary was such a success that in American usage " Webster's " soon became synonymous with " dictionary " was and was similar to the German Duden seen as essential in all cases of doubt. Together with his grammar and spelling help as he helped the American English a distinct identity.

After Webster's death, his name was not protected by copyright, so many publishers printed his name on their dictionaries. The Merriam brothers bought the rights to the version of 1828, and today the Merriam- Webster is considered the standard dictionary of American English. An expanded edition was published in 1913; this and all previous versions are in the public domain today. Although the dictionaries of the publisher Merriam- Webster return (a subsidiary of Britannica ) directly to Noah Webster's client, use many other publishing houses such as Random House and John Wiley & Sons the name Webster.

Webster's Bible Translation

Webster published in 1833 a translation of the Bible based on the King James Bible in the light of the Greek and Hebrew original texts. He replaced obsolete words, the grammar updated and replaced some phrases that he considered offensive.