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Revision of the Anglo-Norman Dictionary (Letters T-Z)

Lead Research Organisation: Aberystwyth University
Department Name: European Languages

Abstract

The significance of Anglo-Norman in its own day and its long-term impact on the development of modern English lexis cannot be overstated: this dialect of French was introduced in Britain after the Norman Conquest in 1066, and was used extensively for over four centuries, attested by its use in several million texts relating to all areas of medieval life in Britain, such as literature, law, religion, commerce, science, education and administration. As a result, Anglo-Norman became instrumental in shaping almost two thirds of the English vocabulary, as recorded by the OED. The Anglo-Norman Dictionary was conceived eighty years ago as a comprehensive account of the vocabulary of this language and culminated in a series of volumes printed between 1977-92 (AND1). A programme of revision and digitization soon followed to produce a widely expanded, online dictionary (AND2), which has been freely available since 2006 (www.anglo-norman.net). Recognized by the Prix Honoré Chavée by the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres in Paris (2011) for its contribution to the study of Anglo-Norman, the online AND has established itself as the authoritative resource on Anglo-Norman, providing an essential tool for a wide range of users: academic specialists, including linguists, literary scholars, archivists and historians, as well as non-specialists interested in the life and languages of medieval Britain.

The current project constitutes the final phase which will bring almost three decades of AND revision to a successful end. Following the completion of the revision of the entries for letters A-S, the AND editorial team will now revise the remainder of the dictionary, those entries found under letters T-Z, over a 42-month period, at a rate of approximately 600 entries per annum. The revision process re-investigates and greatly improves every current AND1 entry for semantic detail and textual coverage and adds new entries for the many words not previously noted. For the sake of illustration, in the revised N- entries, the number of substantive entries more than doubled (from 339 to 887), as did the number of senses (931 to 2088), with four times the number of illustrative citations (from 1075 to 4218).

The revision of T-Z will also raise these entries to the higher academic standards which distinguish the online AND's entries from those of AND1 and make it a versatile tool for studying Anglo-Norman in its multilingual and sociological context. These include the systematic cross-referencing of all entries to cognate entries in dictionaries of medieval French, Latin, and English; the dating and chronological presentation of all citations, which together with the identification of the earliest attestation expand the AND from originally a purely semantic dictionary (providing definitions of words) to also a historical one (tracing the history of words); the addition of searchable semantic tags in definitions, which allow the analysis of the language through domains, or onomasiological fields; and the addition of editorial commentaries highlighting linguistic, semantic, or historical aspects of more complex entries.

In addition to this, a new system of searchable 'language tags' will be introduced throughout the entirety of the dictionary, allowing users to search specifically for loanwords and borrowings in Anglo-Norman. Furthermore, the editorial team will carry out a focussed re-examination of 25 mixed language source texts and add the results to the entirety of the Dictionary. The combination of these additional materials and the new search option will provide new insights into the multilingual nature of medieval Britain and its international contacts.

The final months of the project will allow the editors to consolidate the data across all editorial stages, ensuring consistent data for all future studies into the lexis of Anglo-Norman.
 
Description The revision of T was published online (www.anglonorman.net) sping 2024.
The revision of W and X were published online (www.anglonorman.net) February 2025.
Additional 'Advanced Search' options were created to support research in multilingual history and etymology of English and French.
The searchable Textbase was expanded with more than 20 new items, including unpublished transcriptions
The inclusion of Anglo-Norman lexis from surnames (adding almost 1500 citations A-Z)
The inclusion of early materials from the works of Wace (adding more than 5000 citations A-Z)
Exploitation Route The Anglo-Norman Dictionary is essential tool for a wide range of users: academic specialists, including linguists, literary scholars, archivists and historians,
as well as non-specialists interested in the life and languages of medieval Britain. The language is a major component in the analysis of the hirstory and etymology of Modern English.
Sectors Education

 
Description General public with an interest in language and/or history. Authors of historical fiction novels. Linguistic advice to museum exhibitions.
First Year Of Impact 2021
Sector Education,Leisure Activities, including Sports, Recreation and Tourism,Culture, Heritage, Museums and Collections
Impact Types Cultural

 
Title Citations batch editor 
Description This new editorial tool allows editors of the AND to make batch-changes to all citations of a given text source (listed in the bibliography). It allows for a much faster conversion of a large number of citations that need an overall correction (e.g. change of ource date, change of edition, etc.). It combines this with an option to make detailed changes to individual citations in the dictionary and publish them online instantly. 
Type Of Material Improvements to research infrastructure 
Year Produced 2023 
Provided To Others? No  
Impact In the first week, date corrections were applied to more than 20,000 citations in the dictionary and reflected online. This was achieved within two days. The tool will continue to be used to make further corrections/changes, and is essential in the maintainance and continuing development of the online platform. 
URL https://anglo-norman.net/dms/browse-sources/
 
Title Advanced search by language 
Description A new 'Advanced Search' option allows users to find all words that were borrowed into Anglo-Norman from another languaage (Latin, Greek, English, Welsh, Dutch, Spanish, Irish, etc.). 
Type Of Material Data analysis technique 
Year Produced 2024 
Provided To Others? Yes  
Impact Medieval languages incluenced each other and overlapped. This search function allows users to study this field, highlighting the way in which Anglo-Norman sometimes functions as an intersection of languages, reflecting its multilingual context. 
URL https://anglo-norman.net/
 
Title Expansion of the searchable Anglo-Norman Textbase 
Description in 2024 The searhable AND Textbase was expanded with more than 20 texts, including many ANTS editions but also otherwise unpublished transciptions by AND team members. 
Type Of Material Database/Collection of data 
Year Produced 2024 
Provided To Others? Yes  
Impact Reseracher have access to a wider range of Anglo-Norman texts materials in their search, and this has already proved very useful to the AND team in the creation of new entries and the finding of additional citations and/or senses. Texts that are otherwise not available can be read on the AND site. 
URL https://anglo-norman.net/textbase-search/
 
Title Live linking of reference to 9 Cognate dictionaries in every AND entry, together with a dedicated Advanced Search option 
Description These links and Search option allow for more advanced research into the multilingual context of Anglo-Norman, providing immediate access to cognate entries in relevant dictionaries. The search feature will allow dictionaries of French, English and Latin, to expand the linking between their entries the AND. 
Type Of Material Computer model/algorithm 
Year Produced 2025 
Provided To Others? Yes  
Impact This feature has only recently been made available, so impact on research and use by other dictionaries will be measured in teh future. It has already sped up and improved the methhodologies of the AND team in re-working existing entries and identifying their linguistic context and etymology. 
URL https://anglo-norman.net/
 
Description Anglo-Norman Text Society collaboration 
Organisation Anglo-Norman Text Society
Country United Kingdom 
Sector Learned Society 
PI Contribution The AND team works closely with the ANTS editors, and advise on potential editions in the series.
Collaborator Contribution The ANTS provides free membership to the AND, as well as free access to digital versions of all their previous publications. The ANTS has committed itself to meet server costs of the project for a minimum of three years after the grant ended. One of the Presidents of the ANTS, Ian Short, is a member of the advisory board of the AND and regularly provides citations from new sources to be added to the AND. He is also external proofreader to all AND#2 entries produced.
Impact The ANTS has contributed directly to elements of the revision of R/S. The AND editors are considering producing a text edition published by the ANTS.
Start Year 2017
 
Description BERTrade: Using Contextual Embeddings to Parse Old French 
Organisation University of Stuttgart
Country Germany 
Sector Academic/University 
PI Contribution AND provided expertise and raw text material as a source, added to their Profiterole corpus. 2022-23.
Collaborator Contribution expertise
Impact Searchable text database
Start Year 2022
 
Description Collaboration with the Dictionnaire Étymologique de l'ancien français 
Organisation Etymological Dictionary of the Old French
Country Germany 
Sector Learned Society 
PI Contribution The AND team answers queries from the DEAF team, and provides Anglo-Norman material essential to the writing of the DEAF. The DEAF project has now been terminated.
Collaborator Contribution The DEAF team answers queries from the AND team. They allow the AND to use their bibliographic database and citation dating methodology. One of their editors, Dr. Stephen Dörr, is a current external proofreader to all AND#2 entries produced, and provides linguistic/lexicographical advice.
Impact Dating of all AND citations is in process, and expected to be published online in 2019. Dr. Dörr's corrections/advice contribute to the final product, i.e. the publication of AND#2 R- and S-
 
Description Collaboration with the Oxford English Dictionary 
Organisation Oxford University Press
Department Oxford English Dictionary
Country United Kingdom 
Sector Private 
PI Contribution The AND regularly responds to queries from the OED etymological team regarding specifically Anglo-Norman issues.
Collaborator Contribution The OED helps with any queries the AND team may have (etymological and other), and have given the AND team online access to their editorial browser and notes.
Impact Discussions are underway to hyperlink all relevant OED entries to AND entries. This has become feasible through the AND's cognate referencing system created 2012-16.
Start Year 2017
 
Description Historical Thesaurus 
Organisation University of Glasgow
Country United Kingdom 
Sector Academic/University 
PI Contribution The AND project makes all of its data available, to form the basis of further developments of the Historical Thesaurus.
Collaborator Contribution The Historical Thesaurus provides server space, at the University of Glasgow, to store the AND website.
Impact Migration of the AND website.
Start Year 2020
 
Description Hybrid Relics: Socially Embedding the Soul in Design 
Organisation University of Nottingham
Country United Kingdom 
Sector Academic/University 
PI Contribution AND provided specific text materials, expertise and wrote article.
Collaborator Contribution expertise
Impact collaborative article
Start Year 2023
 
Description Project MICLE (Micro-cues of language evolution: A Multifactorial model of V2 loss in Central Romance) 
Organisation Caen University
Country France 
Sector Academic/University 
PI Contribution AND provided specific text materials, added to their corpus. 2021-23. The team also provided linguistic advise on several occasions.
Collaborator Contribution expertise
Impact serahcbale database of texts
Start Year 2021
 
Description 'St Illtud in the Earliest Welsh Texts', Landscapes of Faith, Llanilltud Fawr, 5 June 2021 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact This was an online presentation to a general public as part of a larger programme of engagements to do with local history. There were questions and discussions afterwards.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2021
URL https://llandaff.churchinwales.org.uk/en/news-and-blog/landscapes-faith-festival-comes-south-wales/
 
Description A talk or presentation - Paper (University of Asuncion, Paraguay) 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact The Talk 'Le Dictionnaire de l'Anglo Normand, solutions numériques aux problèmes médiévaux?' sparked questions and discussion afterwards about medieval French and medieval Francophonia, and the university reported increased interest in related subject areas.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2023
URL https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZidudbnYHk
 
Description Blog article (AND website) 
Form Of Engagement Activity Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact I wrote an article about "ANGLO-NORMAN TOURNAMENTS AND THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY' for the AND blog.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2022
URL https://anglo-norman.net/anglo-norman-tournaments-and-the-thirteenth-century/
 
Description Daron Burrows lecture 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact The project organised this yealrly David trotter Memorial lecture: 'On Editing Anglo-Norman Texts: The Verse Psalter, for example', given by Daron Burrows, Professor of French at Oxford University. This event took place in October 2021, and was online.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2021
URL https://anglo-norman.net/memorial-lecture-introduction/
 
Description Lecture (IMS seminar, Leeds University) 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact I gave a lecture about "Medieval Intercomprehension: Intelligibility, Translation, and Adaptation in Twelfth- to Fourteenth-Century Anglo-Norman Literature" at the Institute for Medieval Studies Research Seminar, University of Leeds, UK in October 2022. More than 35 people attended in person and online, which sparked questions and discussion afterwards.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2022
URL https://ahc.leeds.ac.uk/history/news/article/2239/ims-research-seminar-series-kicked-off-by-dr-delph...
 
Description Paper (University of French Guayana) 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Postgraduate students
Results and Impact I give a paper titled ''The Anglo-Norman Dictionary: an introduction to medieval francophony and lexicography" in the Seminar for Graduate students in French literature lead by Pr. Isabelle Coumert. After I presented the A-N dictionary and the work of our team, the students show a great interest regarding Anglo-Norman and lexicography, which sparked numerous questions and discussion afterwards.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2022
 
Description Social media postings 
Form Of Engagement Activity Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact Social media (Facebook, Twitter and Instagram) are used to make regular posts about Anglo-Norman, usually highlighting interesting words or quotes.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2022,2023
URL http://www.facebook.com/ANDonline/
 
Description Social media postings 
Form Of Engagement Activity Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact Social media (Facebook, Twitter and Instagram) are used to make regular posts about Anglo-Norman, usually highlighting interesting words or quotes.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2022,2023,2024
URL http://www.facebook.com/ANDonline/
 
Description What can hagiography tell us about medieval connections between Wales, Cornwall, and Brittany?: Department of Welsh's Seminar Series , Aberystwyth University 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact This is a talk, in person, online, and then a recording put on youtube, about recent research. There was a lively discussion at the time and others are commenting on social media.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2024
URL https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SpvFlDAE3EM&fbclid=IwAR3Qpw9OeEhGeaeWFsEbihSJ6E4Fw7dhUAJwhFJrPFCiq07...
 
Description online talk to the Indo-European seminar of St.Petersburg Institute for Linguistic Studies: 'Medieval Saints Crossing the English Channel' 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Other audiences
Results and Impact A talk about my academic research to an international audience of academics, with questions and discussion afterwards. The audience is highly specialist but unfamiliar with the precise subject area.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2022