lexikografi

Lexikografi is the discipline that studies and practices the creation, description, and maintenance of dictionaries and other lexical resources. It covers the principles, methods, and tools used to collect a language’s vocabulary, organize it into entries, and present it in a usable form for readers and applications.

Historically, lexikografi evolved from simple glossaries and word lists to comprehensive dictionaries. In the English tradition, early milestones include Samuel Johnson's Dictionary and Noah Webster's schools' dictionaries, while later 19th and 20th century projects broadened scope to descriptive norms rather than prescriptive rules. With the advent of corpus linguistics and computational methods, lexikografi has become increasingly data-driven.

Key tasks include compiling corpora, determining lemmas, sense inventories, and definitions, annotating etymology and pronunciation, and providing usage examples and cross-references. Lexikografi distinguishes monolingual dictionaries, bilingual and multilingual dictionaries, and specialized works (technical, legal, medical, learner’s dictionaries). They also pursue historical lexicography—documenting the development of words over time—and descriptive lexicography—describing how words are used in contemporary speech.

Digital and computational lexikografi use electronic dictionaries, lexical databases such as WordNet, and corpus-based methods to support search, natural language processing, and language learning. Open data, collaborative editing, and crowdsourcing have expanded the speed and scope of updates, while standards and formats such as TEI and other lexical data models aid interoperability.

Lexikografi contributes to language preservation, education, and technological applications, balancing descriptivist scholarship with user needs and evolving usage. It remains a dynamic field as languages adapt to new domains and technologies.