Abstract:

In this study which analyzes nouns given to dictionary in the European languages, brief information for these languages are given in the beginning by demonstrating certain dictionary names in these languages. Then, the meanings, origins, structures, types of the nouns for the dictionaries like glossary, lexicon, thesaurus, dictionary, vocabulary, Wortschatz, wordbook, Wörterbuch, slovar are given and their differences are explained. At the end of the study, it is understood that the dictionary names in the European languages started with Greek originated words (glossary, lexicon, thesaurus), continued its development with Latin words (dictionary, vocabulary) coexisting the Greek ones, and finally matured with national dictionary names (Wortschatz, wordbook, Wörterbuch). Differences may also be observed depending on the preparation purposes of these dictionaries. Moreover, it is also observable that a dictionary name in a dominant language representing a language family can be found in the other relative languages or in the languages of the small communities either in the same or a different form. It is understood that the names of dictionaries are based upon the nouns like ‘voice, word, treasure’, or the verbs like ‘explain, say, hide, voice’. For instance, glossary ‘book of explained words’ (gloss ‘to explain’, glossa ‘language, word to be explained’); lexicon ‘word list’ (légein, ‘to speak’, leksi-s ‘a saying, spoken word’); thesaurus ‘treasure, word treasure’ (the ‘hide’); dictionary ‘wordbook’ (dicere ‘to say’); vocabulary ‘word treasure’ (vox, voc- ‘voice, to voice’, voca-re, ‘voice, call’); Wortschatz ‘word treasure’ (wer ‘to say’); (wer ‘to say’); Wörterbuch ‘wordbook’ (wer ‘to say’); slovar ‘dictionary’ (sloviti ‘to say’, slov ‘word’ [

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