Pioneers and 'no through roads': The story of the early Hebrew-English lexicons

Hebrew-English lexicographers were pioneers of Hebrew lexicography in the vernacular, producing the first Hebrew lexicons in a European language other than Latin. Highly motivated and equipped with a variety of resources these English scholars experimented with and produced a number of fascinating lexical works.The early Hebrew-English lexicons fall into two distinct groups: those written between 1593 and 1656, and those written in the second half of the eighteenth century. Each group displays a pioneering spirit but the work of each group is not continued by the next generation of scholars.This paper briefly identifies the motivations and resources of the early Hebrew-English lexicographers and explores the lexicons they produced between 1593 and 1800. The aims, language theories, sources, and methods of presenting the entries are presented for each of the lexicons with a special emphasis being given to visual samples of the entries. The problems encountered by the lexicographers and the possible reasons for the interruptions in the development of Hebrew-English lexicons are discussed and preliminary conclusions drawn.