Dictionary

Dictionary - A book that collects together in a standard form all the words of a language.

The world's oldest dictionary dates back to about 2300 BCE. The bilingual cuneiform tablet was written during the reign of Sargon of Akkad who unified the Sumerian city-states and created the Akkadian Empire of Mesopotamia, and contains Sumerian words and their Akkadian counterparts.

In about 300 BCE, the Chinese developed the first Dictionary that organized words of the same language, grouping them as synonyms in nineteen different categories. Multilingual dictionaries and glossaries of specialized terms were common in Europe during the Middle Ages (C500-C1450) but it was not until Samuel Johnson created a dictionary of the English Language. in 1755 that the first modern dictionary made its appearance. Johnson's dictionary completed after nine years attempted to encompass all the words of the English language, not merely the obscure ones.

Today there are numerous types of dictionaries that contain explanations of the words of individual languages and a host of multilingual and specialized dictionaries on almost any topic. Some dictionaries list terms relevant to a particular subject matter or field of study - legal or medical dictionaries are examples - while others contain words from one more languages with translations. 

The first dictionaries were of little importance in societies where oral communication was the norm. Complete dictionaries were needed only after the invention of writing; only became practical after the invention of the printing press and only became truly necessary after literacy became commonplace. The dictionary codified language and provided a measuring stick that the literate could apply to there own tongue. Referred to by anyone , the dictionary conferred a uniformity in how the written word was used, enabling free and accurate communication without any spelling mistakes.