Page 178 - Encyclopedia Of World History

528 berkshire encyclopedia of world history

Clifford, J. (1994). Diasporas. Current Anthropology, 9(3), 302–338. tributing to ethnocentrism and linguistic conformity. For
Cohen, R. (1994). Frontiers of identity:The British and the rest. London: their part encyclopedias have provided classification con-
Longman.
Cohen, R. (Ed.). (1997). Global diasporas: An introduction. Seattle: Uni- cepts to organize world knowledge, while simultane-
versity of Washington Press. ously offering a snapshot in time of that knowledge.They
Curtin, P. (1984). Cross-cultural trade in world history. Cambridge, UK:
Cambridge University Press. have fostered learning by educating as well as edifying the
Gabaccia, D. (2000). Italy’s many diasporas. Seattle: University of Wash- reader. However, encyclopedias have also been grounded
ington Press. in contemporary biases and superstitions
Gilroy, P. (1993). The black Atlantic: Modernity and double consciousness.
London: Verso. Rudimentary forms of dictionaries and encyclopedias
Gold, S. J. (2002). The Israeli diaspora. Seattle: University of Washing- have been used since ancient times. Compilations of
ton Press.
Harris, J. E. (1982). Global dimensions of the African diaspora. Wash- bilingual word lists began as early as 3000 BCE in Sumer-
ington, DC: Howard University Press. ian culture and were later adopted by their conquering
Kenny, K. (2003). Diaspora and comparison: The global Irish as a case neighbors, the Akkadians, then spread to peoples from
study. Journal of American History, 90(1), 134–162.
Koser, K. (Ed.). (2003). New African diasporas. New York: Routledge. other parts of the Middle East.The Western tradition can
Lemelle, S. J., & Kelly, R. D. G. (1994). Imagining home: Class, culture be traced to the Greek glossai, which were used to inter-
and nationalism in the African diaspora. London: Verso.
Pan, L. (1991). Sons of the Yellow Emperor:The story of the overseas Chi- pret the classic literary works of Homer and the ancient
nese. London: Mandarin. law (Green 1996).The concept of the enkyklios paideia,
Safran, W. (1991). Diasporas in modern societies: Myths of homeland the “general” or “rounded” education, goes back to Plato
and return. Diaspora 1(1), 83–99.
Suny, R. (1993). Looking toward Ararat: Armenia in modern history. and Aristotle. In fact the first recognizable “encyclopedic”
Bloomington: Indiana University Press. work is considered to be a collection of Plato’s writings
Toloyan, K. (1991). Preface. Diaspora, 1(1), 3–7.
Van der Veer, P. (Ed.). (1995). Nation and migration:The politics of space by his nephew Speusippos that were used for instruction
in the South Asian diaspora. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania at Plato’s Academy.
Press.
Vertovec, S. (2000). The Hindu diaspora: Comparative patterns. London:
Routledge. Dictionaries
Wang, G. (1991). China and the Chinese overseas. Singapore: Times Aca- In addition to the Greek glossai, there is an early tradition
demic Press.
of lexicography in Sanskrit, as well as in Chinese,Arabic,
and Japanese. As early as 300 BCE, lexicons were written
to aid in understanding the Vedas, or sacred Hindu texts.
Related to these is the later classic of Sanskrit lexicogra-
Dictionaries and phy, the Amarakosha by Amarasimha (650 CE).The Chi-

nese tradition stems from early glosses like the Erh-ya in
Encyclopedias second century BCE.The Shuo wen jie zi compiled by Hsü
Shen around 120 CE was the first etymological Chinese
ictionaries and encyclopedias are outgrowths of the dictionary.While Arabic wordlists and vocabularies pre-
Dhuman urge to decipher, systematize, explain, and dated it, the first Arabic dictionary is considered the Kitab
learn. From cuneiform tablets to the World Wide Web, al’ Ain by Al-Khalı¯l ibn Ahmad written in the late 700s
dictionaries have defined, standardized, and influenced CE. But it is the ¸Sih¯ah by al-Jawharı¯ (d. 1003) that set the
the use of human language, while encyclopedias have standard for the classic Arabic dictionary and the T¯aj al-
mirrored and shaped knowledge. ‘ar¯us by al-Murtada¯ al-Zabı¯dı (d.1791) that incorporated
¯
During their long history, dictionaries have reflected numerous previous works and represents the culmination
the history and origins of language, in addition to offer- of a thousand-year tradition. There is a long history of
ing definitions, etymologies, pronunciations, and spelling Japanese lexicography stretching from the Heian period
standards. But they have also been criticized for con- (794–1185) to the end of the Muromachi period (1338–