Scotland in definition : a history of Scottish dictionaries

This book gives an account of Scots and Gaelic dictionaries and glossaries, and also of the contribution by many Scots to the lexicography of English, from medieval times to the major electronic projects of the twenty-first century.

It will appeal to everyone with an interest in language in general and Scotland's languages in particular.

Readers will be fascinated by the ways in which poets and scholars through the ages have approached the task of describing their languages, and the influence of their work on popular notions regarding language, notably the contribution which lexicographers have made, and still make, to preserving and developing the Scots and Gaelic tongues through centuries of official neglect and oppression.