In:Transatlantic Perspectives on Late Modern English
Edited by Marina Dossena
[Advances in Historical Sociolinguistics 4] 2015
► pp. 37–53
Political perspectives on linguistic innovation in independent America
Learning from the libraries of Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826)
Published online: 12 February 2015
https://doi.org/10.1075/ahs.4.02per
https://doi.org/10.1075/ahs.4.02per
In this study, I focus the large subject of Late Modern English in newly independent America through the lens of the politician and scholar Thomas
Jefferson. Drawing on evidence relating to the several libraries he assembled serially over his lifetime, especially on catalogues and correspondence, I focus particularly on lexis and on lexicography – especially, how American neologisms and a new American dictionary might relate both to linguistic tradition in Britain and to political affiliations in America. The grammars and dictionaries catalogued in Jefferson’s library hint at this politician’s lifelong interest in English usage. The correspondence connected with his library (including the spelling of his letters) demonstrates in more detail that Jefferson was interested in American neologisms and in non-standard spelling. In brief, Jefferson’s republican, anti-federalist political principles are consistent with his linguistic opinions, especially with his resistance to imposed reform despite his enthusiasm for lexical and orthographical innovation. In turn, these epistolary debates remind us of the linguistic consequences of political divisions within the new republic.
References (29)
Gilreath, James & Douglas L. Wilson (eds.). 1989. Thomas Jefferson’s library: A catalog with the entries in his own order. Washington: Library of Congress.
Jefferson, Thomas. 2008. The papers of Thomas Jefferson digital edition, Barbara B. Oberg & J. Jefferson Looney (eds.). Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, Rotunda. [URL] (accessed 26 February 2014).
. 2013[1820]. Letter from Thomas Jefferson to John Adams, 15 August 1820. Founders Online. National Archives. [URL], ver. 2014-05-09 (accessed 3 July 2014)
. 2013[1821]. Letter from Thomas Jefferson to William S. Cardell, 27 January 1821. Founders Online. National Archives. [URL], ver. 2014-05-09 (accessed 3 July 2014)
Monthly Anthology, and Boston Review. 1809. Review of A compendious dictionary of the English language, by Noah Webster. 7. 246–264. Sabin Americana 1500–1926. [URL] (accessed 26 February 2014).
OED, The Oxford English dictionary, [URL] (accessed 26 February 2014).
Pickering, John. 1816. A vocabulary, or, collection of words and phrases, which have been supposed to be peculiar to the United States of America. Boston, 1816. Sabin Americana 1500–1926
. [URL] (accessed 3 July 2014).
Poor, Nathaniel P. 1944 [1829]. Catalogue. President Jefferson’s library. A catalogue of the extensive and valuable library of the late President Jefferson, (copied from the original MS., in his hand-writing, as arranged by himself). Washington: printed by Gales and Seaton. Facsimile reprint: Ypsilanti, MI: University Lithoprinters.
Sabin Americana, 1500–1926. 2014. Gale Cengage Learning. [URL] (accessed 26 February 2014).
Sowerby, E. Millicent (ed.). 1952–1959. Catalogue of the library of Thomas Jefferson; compiled with annotations by E. Millicent Sowerby. vol. 5. Washington: The Library of Congress. [URL] (accessed 26 February 2014).
Secondary sources
American national biography online. Revised February 2000. Oxford University Press for American Council of Learned Societies. [URL] (accessed 26 February 2014).
Bailey, Richard W. 2009. National and regional dictionaries of English. In A.P. Cowie (ed.), The Oxford history of English lexicography, vol. 1, 279–301. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Burkett, Eva Mae. 1979. American dictionaries of the English language before 1861. Metuchen, NJ and London: Scarecrow Press.
Dictionary of American biography. 1936. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons. In Biography in Context. Gale Cengage Learning. [URL] (accessed 26 February 2014).
Hallock, Thomas. 2009.
Notes on the state of Virginia and the Jeffersonian west. In Frank
Shuffelton (ed.), The Cambridge companion to Thomas Jefferson, 47–60. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Hayes, Kevin J. 2012. The libraries of Thomas Jefferson. In Francis D. Cogliano (ed.), A companion to Thomas Jefferson, 333–348. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.
Heath, Shirley Brice. 1977. A national language academy? Debate in the new nation. Linguistics: An International Review 189. 9–44.
Landau, Sidney. 2009. Major American dictionaries. In A.P. Cowie (ed.), The Oxford history of English lexicography, vol. 1. 182–229. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Mencken, H.L. 1937[1936]. The American language: An inquiry into the development of English in the United States. 4th ed. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. [First edition: 1919.]
Onuf, Peter S. 2012. Jefferson and American democracy. In Francis D. Cogliano (ed.), A companion to Thomas Jefferson, 397–418. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.
Peterson, Merrill D. 1970. Thomas Jefferson and the new nation: A biography. New York: Oxford University Press.
Simpson, David. 1986. The politics of American English, 1776–1850. New York: Oxford University Press.
Staloff, Darren. 2009. The politics of pedagogy: Thomas Jefferson and the education of a democratic citizenry. In Frank Shuffelton (ed.), The Cambridge companion to Thomas Jefferson, 127–142. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.