An encyclopedia (also spelled encyclopaedia or encyclopædia) is a type of reference work A reference work is a compendium of information, usually of a specific type, compiled in a book for ease of reference. That is, the information is intended to be quickly found when needed. Reference works are usually referred to for particular pieces of information, rather than read beginning to end. The writing style used in these works is, a compendium A compendium is a concise, yet comprehensive compilation of a body of knowledge. A compendium may summarize a larger work. In most cases the body of knowledge will concern some delimited field of human interest or endeavour , while a "universal" encyclopedia can be referred to as a compendium of all human knowledge holding information Information, in its most restricted technical sense, is an ordered sequence of symbols. As a concept, however, information has many meanings. Moreover, the concept of information is closely related to notions of constraint, communication, control, form, instruction, knowledge, meaning, mental stimulus, pattern, perception, and representation from either all branches of knowledge Knowledge is defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as expertise, and skills acquired by a person through experience or education; the theoretical or practical understanding of a subject; (ii) what is known in a particular field or in total; facts and information; or (iii) awareness or familiarity gained by experience of a fact or situation or a particular branch of knowledge.[1]

Encyclopedias are divided into articles A news article is an article published in a print or Internet news medium such as a newspaper, newsletter, news magazine, news-oriented website, or article directory that discusses current or recent news of either general interest or on a specific topic (i.e. political or trade news magazines, club newsletters, or technology news websites). The articles in an encyclopedia are usually accessed alphabetically by article name (or sometimes by theme). Unlike dictionary A dictionary, also referred to as a lexicon, wordbook, or vocabulary, is a collection of words in one or more specific languages, often listed alphabetically, with usage information, definitions, etymologies, phonetics, pronunciations, and other information; or a book of words in one language with their equivalents in another, also known as a entries which are about the often many linguistic, etymological Etymology is the study of the history of words, where they are from, and how their form and meaning have changed over time and usage aspects of their entry's word A word is the smallest free form in a language, in contrast to a morpheme, which is the smallest unit of meaning. A word may consist of only one morpheme (e.g. wolf), but a single morpheme may not be able to exist as a free form (e.g. the English plural morpheme -s) or term, each encyclopedia article's subject is a single concept A concept is a cognitive unit of meaning—an abstract idea or a mental symbol sometimes defined as a "unit of knowledge," built from other units which act as a concept's characteristics. A concept is typically associated with a corresponding representation in a language or symbology[citation needed] such as a single meaning of a term that is referred to[2] by the article name.

Encyclopedias have existed for around 2,000 years; the oldest still in existence, Naturalis Historia Naturalis Historia is an encyclopedia published circa AD 77-79 by Pliny the Elder. It is one of the largest single works to have survived from the Roman empire to the modern day and purports to cover the entire field of ancient knowledge, based on the best authorities available to Pliny. He claims to be the only Roman ever to have undertaken such, was written in Roman times by Pliny the Elder Gaius Plinius Secundus , better known as Pliny the Elder, was a Roman author, naturalist, and natural philosopher as well as naval and army commander of the early Roman Empire and personal friend of the emperor Vespasian. Spending most of his spare time studying, writing or investigating natural and geographic phenomena in the field, he wrote an. The modern encyclopedia evolved out of dictionaries around the 17th century. Historically, some encyclopedias were contained in one volume Volume is how much three-dimensional space a substance or shape occupies or contains, often quantified numerically using the SI derived unit, the cubic metre. The volume of a container is generally understood to be the capacity of the container, i. e. the amount of fluid (gas or liquid) that the container could hold, rather than the amount of, but some, such as the Encyclopaedia Britannica The Encyclopædia Britannica is a general English-language encyclopaedia published by Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., a privately held company. Articles are aimed at educated adults, and written by about 100 full-time editors and more than 4,000 expert contributors. It is regarded as the most scholarly of encyclopaedias, became huge multi-volume works. Some modern encyclopedias are electronic and are often freely available.

The word encyclopaedia comes from the Koine Greek Koine Greek is the popular form of Greek which emerged in post-Classical antiquity (c.300 BC – AD 300). Other names are Alexandrian, Hellenistic, Patristic, Common, Biblical or New Testament Greek. Original names were koine, Hellenic, Alexandrian and Macedonian (Macedonic); all on the contrast to Attic dialect. Koine was the first common supra- "ἐγκυκλοπαιδεία"[3], from Greek Greek , an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages, is the language of the Greeks. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. In its ancient form, it is the language of classical ancient Greek literature and the New Testament of "ἐγκύκλιος παιδεία"[4], transliterated "enkyklios paideia": "enkyklios" (ἐγκύκλιος), meaning "circular, round"[5] + "paideia" (παιδεία), meaning "education, rearing of a child"[6]. Together, the phrase literally translates as a "well rounded education" or "general knowledge".

Indeed, the purpose of an encyclopedia is to collect knowledge disseminated around the globe; to set forth its general system to the men with whom we live, and transmit it to those who will come after us, so that the work of preceding centuries will not become useless to the centuries to come; and so that our offspring, becoming better instructed, will at the same time become more virtuous and happy, and that we should not die without having rendered a service to the human race in the future years to come.[7] — Diderot Denis Diderot was a French philosopher, art critic, and writer. He was a prominent figure during the Enlightenment and is best-known for serving as co-founder and chief editor of and contributor to the Encyclopédie

Contents

History

Pliny the Elder

Naturalis Historia, 1669 edition, title page.

One of the earliest encyclopedic works to have survived to modern times is the Naturalis Historia Naturalis Historia is an encyclopedia published circa AD 77-79 by Pliny the Elder. It is one of the largest single works to have survived from the Roman empire to the modern day and purports to cover the entire field of ancient knowledge, based on the best authorities available to Pliny. He claims to be the only Roman ever to have undertaken such of Pliny the Elder Gaius Plinius Secundus , better known as Pliny the Elder, was a Roman author, naturalist, and natural philosopher as well as naval and army commander of the early Roman Empire and personal friend of the emperor Vespasian. Spending most of his spare time studying, writing or investigating natural and geographic phenomena in the field, he wrote an, a Roman Ancient Rome was a civilization that grew out of a small agricultural community founded on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 10th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea, it became one of the largest empires in the ancient world statesman living in the first century AD. He compiled a work of 37 chapters covering natural history, art and architecture, medicine, geography, geology and all aspects of the world around him. He stated in the preface that he had compiled 20,000 facts from 2000 different works by 200 authors, and added many others from his own experience. The work was published in 80 AD[citation needed], although he probably never finished proofing the work before his death in the eruption of Vesuvius Mount Vesuvius is a stratovolcano on the Bay of Naples, Italy, about 9 kilometres (5.6 mi) east of Naples and a short distance from the shore. It is the only volcano on the European mainland to have erupted within the last hundred years, although it is not currently erupting. The two other major active volcanoes in Italy, Etna and Stromboli, are in 79 AD.

The scheme of his great work is vast and comprehensive, being nothing short of a compendium of learning and of art so far as they are connected with nature, or draw their materials from nature. He admits that

My subject is a barren one – the world of nature, or in other words life; and that subject in its least elevated department, and employing either rustic terms or foreign, many barbarian words that actually have to be introduced with an apology. Moreover, the path is not a beaten highway of authorship, nor one in which the mind is eager to range: there is not one of us who has made the same venture, nor yet one Greek who has tackled single-handed all departments of the subject.

And he admits the problems of writing such a work:

It is a difficult task to give novelty to what is old, authority to what is new, brilliance to the common-place, light to the obscure, attraction to the stale, credibility to the doubtful, but nature to all things and all her properties to nature.

Although there were earlier works of a similar nature, by Marcus Terentius Varro Marcus Terentius Varro , also known as Varro Reatinus to distinguish him from his younger contemporary Varro Atacinus, was a Roman scholar and writer for example, Pliny's was the only one to survive the Dark ages The Dark Ages is a term referring to the perceived period of cultural and economic decline and disruption that took place in Western Europe following the decline of the Roman Empire. The word is derived from Latin saeculum obscurum , a phrase first recorded in 1602. The label employs traditional light-versus-darkness imagery to contrast the ". It became very popular in the Roman world, and survived, with many copies being made and distributed in the western world. It was one of the first classical manuscripts to be printed in 1470, and has remained popular ever since as a source of information on the Roman Ancient Rome was a civilization that grew out of a small agricultural community founded on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 10th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea, it became one of the largest empires in the ancient world world, and especially Roman art Roman art includes the visual arts produced in Ancient Rome, and in the territories of the Roman empire. Major forms of Roman art are architecture, painting, sculpture and mosaic work. Metal-work, coin-die and gem engraving, ivory carvings, figurine glass, pottery, and miniature book illustrations are sometimes considered in modern terms to be, Roman technology Roman technology is the engineering practice which supported Roman civilization and made the expansion of Roman commerce and Roman military possible over nearly a thousand years and Roman engineering Romans are generally famous for their advanced engineering accomplishments, although some of their own inventions were improvements on older ideas, concepts and inventions. Technology for bringing running water into cities was developed in the east, but transformed by the Romans into a technology inconceivable in Greece. The architecture used in. It is also a recognised source for medicine Medicine is the science and art of healing. It encompasses a range of health care practices evolved to maintain and restore health by the prevention and treatment of illness. Before scientific medicine, healing arts were practised in accordance with alchemical treatments and ritual practices that developed out of religious and cultural traditions, art Art is the process or product of deliberately arranging elements in a way to affect the senses or emotions. It encompasses a diverse range of human activities, creations, and modes of expression, including music, literature, film, photography, sculpture, and paintings. The meaning of art is explored in a branch of philosophy known as aesthetics, mineralogy Mineralogy is the study of chemistry, crystal structure, and physical properties of minerals. Specific studies within mineralogy include the processes of mineral origin and formation, classification of minerals, their geographical distribution, as well as their utilization, zoology Zoology , occasionally also spelt zoölogy, is the branch of biology that focuses on the structure, function, behavior, and evolution of animals, botany Botany, plant science, phytology, or plant biology is a branch of biology that involves the scientific study of plant life. Botany covers a wide range of scientific disciplines concerned with the study of plants, algae and fungi, including structure, growth, reproduction, metabolism, development, diseases, chemical properties, and evolutionary, geology Geology is the science and study of the physical matter and energy that constitute the Earth. The field of geology encompasses the study of the composition, structure, properties, and history of the planet's physical material, the processes by which it is formed, moved, and changed, the history of life on Earth, and human interactions with the and many other topics not discussed by other classical authors. Among many interesting entries are those for the elephant Elephants are large land mammals in two genera of the family Elephantidae: Elephas and Loxodonta. Three species of elephant are living today: the African bush elephant, the African forest elephant and the Asian elephant . All other species and genera of Elephantidae are extinct, some since the last ice age: dwarf forms of mammoths may have and the murex snail, the much sought-after source of Tyrian purple Tyrian purple , also known as royal purple, imperial purple or imperial dye, is a purple-red dye first produced by the ancient Phoenicians dye.

Although his work has been criticized for the lack of candor in checking the "facts", some of his text has been confirmed by recent research, like the spectacular remains of Roman gold mines in Spain, especially at Las Medulas, which Pliny probably saw in operation while a Procurator A promagistrate is a person who acts in and with the authority and capacity of a magistrate, but without holding a magisterial office. A legal innovation of the Roman Republic, the promagistracy was invented in order to provide Rome with governors of overseas territories instead of having to elect more magistrates each year. Promagistrates were there a few years before he compiled the encyclopedia. Although many of the mining Mining is the extraction of valuable minerals or other geological materials from the earth, usually from an ore body, vein or seam. Materials recovered by mining include base metals, precious metals, iron, uranium, coal, diamonds, limestone, oil shale, rock salt and potash. Any material that cannot be grown through agricultural processes, or methods are now redundant, such as hushing and fire-setting, it is Pliny who recorded them for posterity, so helping us understand their importance in a modern context. Pliny makes clear in the preface to the work that he had checked his facts by reading and comparing the works of others, as well as referring to them by name. Many such books are now lost works and remembered only by his references, much like the lost sources mentioned in the work of Vitruvius Marcus Vitruvius Pollio was a Roman writer, architect and engineer (possibly praefectus fabrum during military service or praefect architectus armamentarius of the apparitor status group), active in the 1st century BC. By his own description Vitruvius served as a Ballista (artilleryman), the third class of arms in the military offices. He likely a century earlier.

Middle Ages

First printed edition of 1472 (by Guntherus Zainer, Augsburg Augsburg is a city in the south-west of Bavaria in Germany. It is a College town and home of the Regierungsbezirk Schwaben and the Bezirk Schwaben. Augsburg is an urban district and home to the institutions of the Landkreis Augsburg. It is, as of 2008, the third-largest city in Bavaria with a population exceeding 264,000 citizens. After Trier,), title page of book 14 (de terra et partibus), illustrated with a T and O map A T and O map or O-T or T-O map , is a type of medieval world map, sometimes also called a Beatine map or a Beatus map because one of the earliest known representations of this sort is attributed to Beatus of Liébana, an 8th-century Spanish monk. The map appeared in the prologue to his twelve books of commentaries on the Apocalypse.

Saint Isidore of Seville Saint Isidore of Seville (c. 560 – April 4, 636) was Archbishop of Seville for more than three decades and is considered, as Montalembert put it in an oft-quoted phrase, "le dernier savant du monde ancien" ("the last scholar of the ancient world"). Indeed, all the later medieval history-writing of Hispania (the Iberian, one of the greatest scholars of the early Middle Ages, is widely recognized as being the author of the first known encyclopedia of the Middle Ages, the Etymologiae Etymologiae is an encyclopedia compiled by Isidore of Seville (died 636) towards the end of his life, which forms a bridge between a condensed epitome of classical learning at the close of Late Antiquity and the inheritance received, in large part through Isidore's work, by the early Middle Ages. According to the prefatory letters, the work was (around 630), in which he compiled a sizable portion of the learning available at his time, both ancient and modern. The encyclopedia has 448 chapters in 20 volumes, and is valuable because of the quotes and fragments of texts by other authors that would have been lost had they not been collected by Saint Isidore.

Bartholomeus Anglicus Bartholomeus Anglicus (born before 1203–died 1272) was an early 13th-century scholastic scholar of Paris, a member of the Franciscan order. He was the author of On the Properties of Things (De proprietatibus rerum), dated at 1240, an early forerunner of the encyclopedia. Anglicus also held senior positions within the church and was appointed' De proprietatibus rerum (1240) was the most widely read and quoted encyclopedia in the High Middle Ages The High Middle Ages was the period of European history in the 11th, 12th, and 13th centuries . The High Middle Ages were preceded by the Early Middle Ages and followed by the Late Middle Ages, which by convention end around 1500[8] while Vincent of Beauvais's Speculum Majus (1260) was the most ambitious encyclopedia in the late-medieval period at over 3 million words.[8]

The Suda The Suda or Souda is a massive 10th century Byzantine encyclopedia of the ancient Mediterranean world, formerly attributed to an author called Suidas. It is an encyclopedic lexicon, written in Greek, with 30,000 entries, many drawing from ancient sources that have since been lost, and often derived from medieval Christian compilers. The derivation or Souda (Greek: Σοῦδα) is a massive 10th century Byzantine encyclopedia of the ancient Mediterranean world, formerly attributed to an author called Suidas. It is an encyclopedic lexicon, written in Greek, with 30,000 entries, many drawing from ancient sources that have since been lost, and often derived from medieval Christian compilers.

Arabic and Persian

The early Muslim compilations of knowledge The historiography of early Islam refers to the study of the early origins of Islam based on a critical analysis, evaluation, and examination of authentic primary sources materials and the organization of these sources into a narrative timeline in the Middle Ages included many comprehensive works, and much development of what we now call scientific method Scientific method refers to a body of techniques for investigating phenomena, acquiring new knowledge, or correcting and integrating previous knowledge. To be termed scientific, a method of inquiry must be based on gathering observable, empirical and measurable evidence subject to specific principles of reasoning. A scientific method consists of[citation needed], historical method The historical method comprises the techniques and guidelines by which historians use primary sources and other evidence to research and then to write histories in form of accounts of the past. The question of the nature, and indeed the possibility, of sound historical method is raised in the philosophy of history, as a question of epistemology[citation needed], and citation Broadly, a citation is a reference to a published or unpublished source .[citation needed] More precisely, a citation is an abbreviated alphanumeric expression (e.g. [Newell84]) embedded in the body of an intellectual work that denotes an entry in the bibliographic references section of the work for the purpose of acknowledging the relevance of[citation needed]. About year 960, the Brethren of Purity The Brethren of Purity were a mysterious organization, whose exact identity has never been clear. They were Muslim philosophers in Basra, Iraq - which was then the seat of the Abbasid Caliphate - sometime during the 10th century CE of Basra Al-Baṣrah is the capital of Basra Province, Iraq, and had an estimated population of 3,800,200 as of 2009. Basra is also Iraq's main port, although it is incapable of deep water access, which is handled at the port of Umm Qasr. The city is part of the historic location of Sumer, the home of Sinbad the Sailor, and a proposed location of the[9] were engaged in their Encyclopedia of the Brethren of Purity. Notable works include Abu Bakr al-Razi's encyclopedia of science, the Mutazilite Al-Kindi's prolific output of 270 books, and Ibn Sina's medical encyclopedia, which was a standard reference work for centuries. Also notable are works of universal history (or sociology) from Asharites, al-Tabri, al-Masudi, Tabari's History of the Prophets and Kings, Ibn Rustah, al-Athir, and Ibn Khaldun, whose Muqadimmah contains cautions regarding trust in written records that remain wholly applicable today. These scholars had an incalculable influence on methods of research and editing, due in part to the Islamic practice of isnad which emphasized fidelity to written record, checking sources, and skeptical inquiry.

China

Main article: Chinese encyclopedia

The enormous encyclopedic work in China of the Four Great Books of Song, compiled by the 11th century during the early Song Dynasty (960–1279), was a massive literary undertaking for the time. The last encyclopedia of the four, the Prime Tortoise of the Record Bureau, amounted to 9.4 million Chinese characters in 1,000 written volumes. There were many great encyclopedists throughout Chinese history, including the scientist and statesman Shen Kuo (1031–1095) with his Dream Pool Essays of 1088, the statesman, inventor, and agronomist Wang Zhen (active 1290–1333) with his Nong Shu of 1313, and the written Tiangong Kaiwu of Song Yingxing (1587–1666), the latter of whom was termed the "Diderot of China" by British historian Joseph Needham.[10]

The Chinese emperor Yongle of the Ming Dynasty oversaw the compilation of the Yongle Encyclopedia, one of the largest encyclopedias in history, which was completed in 1408 and comprised over 370 million Chinese characters in 11,000 handwritten volumes, of which only about 400 remain today. In the succeeding dynasty, emperor Qianlong of the Qing Dynasty personally composed 40,000 poems as part of a 4.7 million page library in 4 divisions, including thousands of essays, called the Siku Quanshu which is probably the largest collection of books in the world. It is instructive to compare his title for this knowledge, Watching the waves in a Sacred Sea to a Western-style title for all knowledge. Encyclopedic works, both in imitation of Chinese encyclopedias and as independent works of their own origin, have been known to exist in Japan since the ninth century CE.

These works were all hand copied and thus rarely available, beyond wealthy patrons or monastic men of learning: they were expensive, and usually written for those extending knowledge rather than those using it.[8]

17th–19th centuries

Encyclopédie, 1773

The beginnings of the modern idea of the general-purpose, widely distributed printed encyclopedia precede the 18th century encyclopedists. However, Chambers' Cyclopaedia, or Universal Dictionary of Arts and Sciences (1728), and the Encyclopédie of Diderot and D'Alembert (1751 onwards), as well as Encyclopædia Britannica and the Conversations-Lexikon, were the first to realize the form we would recognize today, with a comprehensive scope of topics, discussed in depth and organized in an accessible, systematic method. It is worth noting that Chambers, in 1728, was possibly following the still earlier lead of John Harris' Lexicon Technicum, of 1704 and later editions (see also below); this was also by its title and content "A Universal English Dictionary of Arts and Sciences: Explaining not only the Terms of Art, but the Arts Themselves".

Much encyclopaedism of the French Renaissance was based upon the notion of not including every fact known to humans, but only that knowledge that was necessary, where necessity was judged by a wide variety of criteria, leading to works of greatly varying sizes. Béroalde de Verville laid the foundation for his encyclopaedic works in a hexameral poem entitled Les cognoissances nécessaires for example. Often, the criteria had moral bases, such as in the case of Pierre de La Primaudaye's L'Académie française and Guillaume Telin's Bref sommaire des sept vertus &c.. Encyclopaedists encountered several problems with this approach, including how to decide what to omit as unnecessary, how to structure knowledge that resisted structure (often simply as a consequence of the sheer amount of material that deserved inclusion), and how to cope with the influx of newly discovered knowledge and the effects that it had on prior structures.[11]

The term encyclopaedia was coined by 15th century humanists who misread copies of their texts of Pliny and Quintilian, and combined the two Greek words "enkyklios paideia" into one word.

The English physician and philosopher, Sir Thomas Browne, specifically employed the word encyclopaedia as early as 1646 in the preface to the reader to describe his Pseudodoxia Epidemica or Vulgar Errors, a series of refutations of common errors of his age. Browne structured his encyclopaedia upon the time-honoured schemata of the Renaissance, the so-called 'scale of creation' which ascends a hierarchical ladder via the mineral, vegetable, animal, human, planetary and cosmological worlds. Browne's compendium went through no less than five editions, each revised and augmented, the last edition appearing in 1672. Pseudodoxia Epidemica found itself upon the bookshelves of many educated European readers for throughout the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries it was translated, for many years it was not thought compatible with the French and Dutcheze, into the French, Dutch and German languages as well as Latin.

Harris' Lexicon Technicum, title page of 2nd edition, 1708

John Harris is often credited with introducing the now-familiar alphabetic format in 1704 with his English Lexicon Technicum: Or, A Universal English Dictionary of Arts and Sciences: Explaining not only the Terms of Art, but the Arts Themselves – to give its full title. Organized alphabetically, its content does indeed contain explanation not merely of the terms used in the arts and sciences, but of the arts and sciences themselves. Sir Isaac Newton contributed his only published work on chemistry to the second volume of 1710. Its emphasis was on science—and conformably to the broad 18th-century understanding of the term 'science', its content extends beyond what would be called science or technology today, and includes topics from the humanities and fine arts, e.g. a substantial number from law, commerce, music, and heraldry. At about 1,200 pages, its scope can be considered as more that of an encyclopedic dictionary than a true encyclopedia. Harris himself considered it a dictionary; the work is one of the first technical dictionaries in any language.[citation needed]

Ephraim Chambers published his Cyclopaedia in 1728. It included a broad scope of subjects, used an alphabetic arrangement, relied on many different contributors and included the innovation of cross-referencing other sections within articles. Chambers has been referred to as the father of the modern encyclopedia for this two-volume work.

A French translation of Chambers' work inspired the Encyclopédie, perhaps the most famous early encyclopedia, notable for its scope, the quality of some contributions, and its political and cultural impact in the years leading up to the French revolution. The Encyclopédie was edited by Jean le Rond d'Alembert and Denis Diderot and published in 17 volumes of articles, issued from 1751 to 1765, and 11 volumes of illustrations, issued from 1762 to 1772. Five volumes of supplementary material and a two volume index, supervised by other editors, were issued from 1776 to 1780 by Charles Joseph Panckoucke.

The Encyclopédie represented the essence of the French Enlightenment.[12] The prospectus stated an ambitious goal: the Encyclopédie was to be a systematic analysis of the "order and interrelations of human knowledge."[13] Diderot, in his Encyclopédie article of the same name, went further: "to collect all the knowledge that now lies scattered over the face of the earth, to make known its general structure to the men among we live, and to transmit it to those who will come after us," to make men not only wiser but also "more virtuous and more happy."[14]

Realizing the inherent problems with the model of knowledge he had created, Diderot's view of his own success in writing the Encyclopédie were far from ecstatic. Diderot envisioned the perfect encyclopedia as more than the sum of its parts. In his own article on the encyclopedia, Diderot also wrote, "Were an analytical dictionary of the sciences and arts nothing more than a methodical combination of their elements, I would still ask whom it behooves to fabricate good elements." Diderot viewed the ideal encyclopedia as an index of connections. He realized that all knowledge could never be amassed in just one large work, but he hoped the relations among the subjects could be.

The Encyclopédie in turn inspired the venerable Encyclopædia Britannica, which had a modest beginning in Scotland: the first edition, issued between 1768 and 1771, had just three hastily completed volumes – A–B, C–L, and M–Z – with a total of 2,391 pages. By 1797, when the third edition was completed, it had been expanded to 18 volumes addressing a full range of topics, with articles contributed by a range of authorities on their subjects.

The German-language Conversations-Lexikon was published at Leipzig from 1796 to 1808, in 6 volumes. Paralleling other 18th century encyclopedias, its scope was expanded beyond that of earlier publications, in an effort at comprehensiveness. It was, however, intended not for scholarly use but to provide results of research and discovery in a simple and popular form without extensive detail. This format, a contrast to the Encyclopædia Britannica, was widely imitated by later 19th century encyclopedias in Britain, the United States, France, Spain, Italy and other countries. Of the influential late-18th century and early-19th century encyclopedias, the Conversations-Lexikon is perhaps most similar in form to today's encyclopedias.

A typical custom-made encyclopedia engraving by Maurice Dessertenne for the Nouveau Larousse illustré (France, 1898–1907)

The early years of the 19th century saw a flowering of encyclopedia publishing in the United Kingdom, Europe and America. In England Rees's Cyclopaedia (1802–1819) contains an enormous amount in information about the industrial and scientific revolutions of the time. A feature of these publications is the high-quality illustrations made by engravers like Wilson Lowry of art work supplied by specialist draftsmen like John Farey, Jr. Encyclopaedias were published in Scotland, as a result of the Scottish Enlightenment, for education there was of a higher standard than in the rest of the United Kingdom.

The 17-volume Grand dictionnaire universel du XIXe siècle and its supplements were published in France from 1866 to 1890.

Encyclopædia Britannica appeared in various editions throughout the century, and the growth of popular education and the Mechanics Institutes, spearheaded by the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge led to the production of the Penny Cyclopaedia, as its title suggests issued in weekly numbers at a penny each like a newspaper.

In the early 20th century, the Encyclopædia Britannica reached its eleventh edition, and inexpensive encyclopedias such as Harmsworth's Universal Encyclopaedia and Everyman's Encyclopaedia were common.

20th century

1913 advertisement for Encyclopædia Britannica, the oldest and one of the largest contemporary English encyclopedias.

Popular and affordable encyclopaedias such as Harmsworth's Universal Encyclopaedia and the Children's Encyclopaedia appeared in the early 1920s.

In the United States, the 1950s and 1960s saw the introduction of several large popular encyclopedias, often sold on installment plans. The best known of these were World Book and Funk and Wagnalls.

The second half of the 20th century also saw the publication of several encyclopedias that were notable for synthesizing important topics in specific fields, often by means of new works authored by significant researchers. Such encyclopedias included The Encyclopedia of Philosophy (first published in 1967 and now in its second edition), and Elsevier's Handbooks In Economics[15] series. Encyclopedias of at least one volume in size exist for most if not all academic disciplines, including, typically, such narrow topics such as bioethics and African American history.

By the late 20th century, encyclopedias were being published on CD-ROMs for use with personal computers. Microsoft's Encarta, launched in 1993, was a landmark example as it had no printed equivalent. Articles were supplemented with video and audio files as well as numerous high-quality images. After sixteen years, Microsoft discontinued the Encarta line of products in 2009.[16]

Traditional encyclopedias are written by a number of employed text writers, usually people with an academic degree, and distributed as proprietary content.

Encyclopedias are essentially derivative from what has gone before, and particularly in the 19th century, copyright infringement was common among encyclopedia editors. However, modern encyclopedias are not merely larger compendia, including all that came before them. To make space for modern topics, valuable material of historic use regularly had to be discarded, at least before the advent of digital encyclopedias. Moreover, the opinions and world views of a particular generation can be observed in the encyclopedic writing of the time. For these reasons, old encyclopedias are a useful source of historical information, especially for a record of changes in science and technology.[17] As of 2007, old encyclopedias whose copyright has expired, such as the 1911 edition of Britannica, are also the only free content English encyclopedias released in print form. However, works such as the Great Soviet Encyclopedia, which were created in the public domain, exist as free content encyclopedias in other languages.

Free encyclopedias

See also: History of wikis#Post-Wikipedia (2001-present) Wikipedia is one of the first "user generated content" encyclopedias.

The concept of a new free encyclopedia began with the Interpedia proposal on Usenet in 1993, which outlined an Internet-based online encyclopedia to which anyone could submit content and that would be freely accessible. Early projects in this vein included Everything2 and Open Site. In 1999, Richard Stallman proposed the GNUPedia, an online encyclopedia which, similar to the GNU operating system, would be a "generic" resource. The concept was very similar to Interpedia, but more in line with Stallman's GNU philosophy.

It was not until Nupedia and later Wikipedia that a stable free encyclopedia project was able to be established on the Internet. The English Wikipedia became the world's largest encyclopedia in 2004 at the 300,000 article stage[18] and by late 2005, Wikipedia had produced over two million articles in more than 80 languages with content licensed under the copyleft GNU Free Documentation License. As of August 2009, Wikipedia has over 3 million articles in English and well over 10 million combined in over 250 languages. Since 2003, other free encyclopedias like the Chinese-language Hudong, as well as English language encyclopedias like Citizendium and Knol have appeared.

21st century

Encyclopædia Britannica Ultimate Reference Suite, an example of 21st century encyclopedias.

The encyclopedia's hierarchical structure and evolving nature is particularly adaptable to a disk-based or on-line computer format, and all major printed multi-subject encyclopedias had moved to this method of delivery by the end of the 20th century. Disk-based, typically DVD-ROM or CD-ROM format, publications have the advantage of being cheaply produced and easily portable. Additionally, they can include media which are impossible to store in the printed format, such as animations, audio and video. Hyperlinking between conceptually related items is also a significant benefit, although even Diderot's encyclopedia had cross-referencing. On-line encyclopedias offer the additional advantage of being dynamic: new information can be presented almost immediately, rather than waiting for the next release of a static format, as with a disk- or paper-based publication. Many printed encyclopedias traditionally published annual supplemental volumes ("yearbooks") to update events between editions, as a partial solution to the problem of staying up-to-date, but this of course required the reader to check both the main volumes and the supplemental volume(s). Some disk-based encyclopedias offer subscription-based access to online updates, which are then integrated with the content already on the user's hard disk in a manner not possible with a printed encyclopedia.

Information in a printed encyclopedia necessarily needs some form of hierarchical structure. Traditionally, the method employed is to present the information ordered alphabetically by the article title. However with the advent of dynamic electronic formats the need to impose a pre-determined structure is less necessary. Nonetheless, most electronic encyclopedias still offer a range of organizational strategies for the articles, such as by subject, area, or alphabetically.

CD-ROM and Internet-based encyclopedias also offer greater search abilities than printed versions. While the printed versions rely on indexes to assist in searching for topics, computer accessible versions allow searching through article text for keywords or phrases.

Characteristics

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The modern encyclopaedia was developed from the dictionary in the 18th century. Historically, both encyclopaedias and dictionaries have been researched and written by well-educated, well-informed content experts, but they are significantly different in structure. A dictionary is a linguistic work which primarily focuses on alphabetical listing of words and their definitions. Synonymous words and those related by the subject matter are to be found scattered around the dictionary, giving no obvious place for in-depth treatment. Thus, a dictionary typically provides limited information, analysis or background for the word defined. While it may offer a definition, it may leave the reader lacking in understanding the meaning, significance or limitations of a term, and how the term relates to a broader field of knowledge.

To address those needs, an encyclopaedia article is typically non linguistic, and covers not a word, but a subject or discipline. As well as defining and listing synonymous terms for the topic, the article is able to treat it in more depth and convey the most relevant accumulated knowledge on that subject. An encyclopaedia article also often includes many maps and illustrations, as well as bibliography and statistics.

Four major elements define an encyclopaedia: its subject matter, its scope, its method of organization, and its method of production:

Some works entitled "dictionaries" are actually similar to encyclopaedias, especially those concerned with a particular field (such as the Dictionary of the Middle Ages, the Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, and Black's Law Dictionary). The Macquarie Dictionary, Australia's national dictionary, became an encyclopedic dictionary after its first edition in recognition of the use of proper nouns in common communication, and the words derived from such proper nouns.

There are key differences between an encyclopedia and dictionary. In an encyclopedia the titles are nouns such as common nouns, proper nouns and noun phrases, whereas dictionaries cover all types of words. In addition, because an encyclopedia article's name is only used to refer to the topic, it can take many synonymous forms, even in different languages; whereas a dictionary entry, which is specifically about the entry's name in one particular language, that name cannot be translated to a synonymous term, and thus dictionary entries are not fully translatable, but encyclopedia articles may be.[2]

Etymology

Title page of "Lucubrationes..." 1541 edition, the first book to use the word encyclopedia in the title See also: American and British English spelling differences#Simplification of ae and oe

The word "encyclopaedia" comes from the Pseudo-[19] Classical Greek "ἐγκύκλιος παιδεία", transliterated "enkyklios paideia"; "enkyklios" meaning "cyclical, periodic, or ordinary", and "paideia" meaning "education". Together, the phrase literally translates as a "[well-]rounded education", meaning "general knowledge". Copyists of Latin manuscripts took this phrase to be a single Greek word, "enkuklopaedia", with the same meaning, and this spurious Greek word became the New Latin word "encyclopaedia", which in turn came into English. Though the notion of a compendium of knowledge dates back thousands of years, the term was first used in the title of a book in 1541 by Joachimus Fortius Ringelbergius, Lucubrationes vel potius absolutissima kyklopaideia (Basel, 1541). The word encyclopaedia was first used as a noun in the title of his book by the Croatian encyclopedist Pavao Skalić in his Encyclopaedia seu orbis disciplinarum tam sacrarum quam prophanarum epistemon (Encyclopaedia, or Knowledge of the World of Disciplines, Basel, 1559).[dubious – discuss] One of the oldest vernacular uses was by François Rabelais in his Pantagruel in 1532.[20][21]

Several encyclopaedias have names that include the suffix -p(a)edia, e.g., Banglapedia (on matters relevant for Bengal).

In British usage, the spellings encyclopedia and encyclopaedia are both current.[22] Although the latter spelling is considered more "proper" by British speakers, the former is becoming increasingly common in British English, in part due to the spread of American English. In American usage, only the former is commonly used.[23] The spelling encyclopædia—with the æ ligature—was frequently used in the 19th century and is increasingly rare, although it is retained in product titles such as Encyclopædia Britannica and others. The Oxford English Dictionary (1989) records encyclopædia and encyclopaedia as equal alternatives (in that order), and notes the æ would be obsolete except that it is preserved in works that have Latin titles. Webster's Third New International Dictionary (1997–2002) features encyclopedia as the main headword and encyclopaedia as a minor variant. In addition, cyclopedia and cyclopaedia are now rarely-used shortened forms of the word originating in the 17th century.

See also

Notes

  1. ^ ""Encyclopedia."". Archived from the original on 2007-08-03. http://web.archive.org/web/20070803182506/http://library.rcc.edu/riverside/glossaryoflibraryterms.htm#e. Glossary of Library Terms. Riverside City College, Digital Library/Learning Resource Center. Retrieved on: November 17, 2007.
  2. ^ a b Modern lexicography By Henri Béjoint pg 30
  3. ^ Ἐγκυκλοπαιδεία, Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, at Perseus project
  4. ^ Eγκύκλικος παιδεία, Quintilian, Institutio Oratoria, 1.10.1, at Perseus project
  5. ^ Eγκύκλιος, Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, at Perseus project
  6. ^ Παιδεία, Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, at Perseus project
  7. ^ Denis Diderot and Jean le Rond d'Alembert Encyclopédie. University of Michigan Library:Scholarly Publishing Office and DLXS. Retrieved on: November 17, 2007
  8. ^ a b c See "Encyclopedia" in Dictionary of the Middle Ages.
  9. ^ P.D. Wightman (1953), The Growth of Scientific Ideas
  10. ^ Needham, Volume 5, Part 7, 102.
  11. ^ Neil Kenny (1991). The Palace of Secrets: Beroalde de Verville and Renaissance Conceptions of Knowledge. Oxford University Press. pp. 12–13. ISBN 0198158629.
  12. ^ Himmelfarb, Gertrude (2004). The Roads to Modernity: The British, French, and American Enlightenments. Alfred A. Knopf. ISBN 9781400042364.
  13. ^ Jean le Rond d'Alembert, "Preliminary Discourse," in Denis Diderot's The Encyclopédie: Selections, ed. and trans. Stephen J. Gendzier (1967), cited in Hillmelfarb 2004
  14. ^ Denis Diderot, Rameau's Nephew and Other Works, trans. and ed. Jacques Barzun and Ralph H. Bowen (1956), cited in Himmelfarb 2004
  15. ^ Economics and Finance – Elsevier
  16. ^ Important Notice: MSN Encarta to be Discontinued (MSN Encarta). Archived 2009-10-31.
  17. ^ Kobasa, Paul A. "Encyclopedia." World Book Online Reference Center. 2008. [Place of access.] 13 Jan. 2008 <http://www.worldbookonline.com/wb/Login?ed=wb&tu=%2Fwb%2FArticle%3Fid%3Dar180800>
  18. ^ "Wikipedia Passes 300,000 Articles making it the worlds largest encyclopedia", Linux Reviews, 2004 July 7.
  19. ^ The Compact Edition of the Oxford English Dictionary, Volume I A-O. Oxford University Press. 1971. p. 861.
  20. ^ Bert Roest (1997). "Compilation as Theme and Praxis in Franciscan Universal Chronicles". in Peter Binkley. Pre-Modern Encyclopaedic Texts: Proceedings of the Second Comers Congress, Groningen, 1 – July 4, 1996. BRILL. pp. 213. ISBN 9004108300.
  21. ^ Sorcha Carey (2003). "Two Strategies of Encyclopaedism". Pliny's Catalogue of Culture: Art and Empire in the Natural History. Oxford University Press. pp. 17. ISBN 0199259135.
  22. ^ "encyclopaedia", Chambers Reference Online; "encyclopaedia", AskOxford.
  23. ^ "encyclopaedia", Bartleby.com; "Encyclopaedia", Merriam Webster.

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Encyclopedias
Look up encyclopedia, encyclopaedia, or encyclopedic in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.
Wikisource has the text of the 1921 Collier's Encyclopedia article Cyclopædia.

Categories: Greek loanwords | Encyclopedias

 

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Q. For days I have been reading material on this site called Encyclopedia Dramatica which a friend of mine refered me to. From what I understand, quite a few individuals tend to get offended whenever the site pokes fun at their particular culture or beliefs. Sure, they have jokes posted about mine also, but I just laugh right along with it. I personally think that it's a humourous website that people take way too seriously. Lighten up a little.
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A. People aren't secure in themselves/their beliefs etc tend to get overly defensive when they are made fun of... People defo need to lighten up about ED. It's full of lulz.
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