Comenius on dictionaries

By Werner Hüllen, Essen

It was the inventiveness of this early tradition, enriched by many other achievements in the field of lexicography in the Europe of that time, which helped Jan Amos Komenský, more often called by his Latin name Comenius, to find his place. (Přívratská 1994,155.)

Comenius is the probably unique figure for whom a dictionary, alphabetical or onomasiological, was the direct expression of a philosophical and pedagogical idea. Therefore, the making of dictionaries was directly linked to the elaboration of his system of thought. This system is composed of theological, philosophical, linguistic and pedagogic elements. The theological motivation was certainly the strongest of all, but there were also national overtones, because Comenius wanted the children of his country to enjoy a linguistic education in their own vernacular as he deemed it right and necessary (Čapkova 1968, 55).

For Comenius, the importance of dictionaries resulted from three lines of thought which he had already acquired in his youth from his teachers and from such contemporaries as, for example, Wolfgang Ratke (Ratichius, 1571-1635), Johann Heinrich Alsted (1588-1638), Joachim Jungius (1587-1657), and the Rosicrucians, and which, in one way or another, he adhered to throughout his whole life. They can be labelled universalist, encyclopaedic, and panharmonious. The domain to which these men's ideas pertained was the world at large, conceived of as an ordered entity of details. The domain of their practical work was the individual who achieved harmony of thinking, speaking, and acting by becoming aware of this order.

Even as a young man, between 1611 and 1614, when he studied at the universities of Herborn and Heidelberg, Comenius planned to render the whole world and its intrinsic order accessible to his further ideas and activities by preparing three books, (i) a Theatrum Sanctae Scripturae, (ii) a Theatrum universitatis rerum, and (iii) a Thesaurus linguae Bohemicae. This means he planned an inventory of the spiritual world, of the world of objective reality, and of (his mother) language. The Thesaurus, an alphabetical dictionary, was to consist of (i) a complete list of names of objects, (ii) a grammar, and (iii) a collection of proverbs. With it Comenius aimed at showing (i) the analysis of reality, (ii) the synthesis of thinking, and (iii) the ‘syncrisis’ (his term) of the spiritual and the secular, three methods of reflection in which Comenius engaged to the end of his life (Blekastad 1969, 21-90).

Later, in the years 1618-21, he worked on this book as his opus principale under the title Amphitheatrum. The part devoted to the world was broken down into the theatrum naturae (heaven, earth, and hell, i.e. the universe as a whole according to Comenius's religious convictions), the theatrum humanum (i.e. mankind between sin and salvation), the theatrum orbis terrarum (i.e. a global geography), and the theatrum saeculorum (i.e. a global history). Clearly, these divisions are moving towards the well-known divisions of universalist nomenclators and Comenius's own dictionaries.

Most of the Amphitheatrum and the entire Thesaurus, on which Comenius had worked for forty years, were burnt in Leszno in 1656 in the turmoils of the war. Of the former only chapters one to nineteen are preserved.

In the course of his life, Comenius deliberated on the role of language for humans again and again, treating the subject in various of his works (Geißler 1959, Kraemer 1977). As an epistemological framework, he developed a triadic arrangement of ‘reality, thought, and speech’, also called ’object, mind, and language’ (or: ‘res, mens, and lingua’). In this arrangement one item is not simply the image of the other. The first, res, has only itself as a norm, because they exist independently of the others, but mens follows the nature of res and the nature of itself, and lingua follows the nature of res, of mens, and again of itself (Kraemer 1977, 3‑16, Přívratská 1987). Thus, complexity increases between the members of this chain of terms, and language is the most complex of the three, providing insights into the mind and into reality according to its own, linguistic rules. Consequently, it is only by learning these rules that such insights can be obtained. Ideally, learning a language means causing one’s mind to operate according to the structure of reality.

But language is not an end in itself. It is the starting‑point of action and has to be used as such. In this capacity, as a social activity, language is the central member of another triadic arrangement, namely ‘thought, speech, and action’ or ‘ratio, oratio, and operatio’. The performing instrument of operatio is manus. The two triadic arrangements in line (res—mens—lingua—manus) mark the position of language between reality and the mind on the one hand and its function in society on the other. Moreover, operatio, also called manus, as an activity in society, leads back to reality, because the result of human activity creates another res, thus starting a new cycle. This leads to the arrangement of the terms: res—mens—lingua—manus—res, in which the first res is the object of thinking, speaking, and acting, and the second res is its product. Comenius illustrated this arrangement in the famous schema at the start of his book Triertium catholicum which, more than other texts, stresses the tripartite division of his way of thinking. In fact, the Triertium is even printed in three columns in which the explanations are given in a parallel position (Comenius 1974, 240‑346).

For Comenius, the pedagogue, these philosophical statements have certain didactic consequences. Generally speaking, the language taught must be in harmony with the mind of the learner who is in harmony with reality, and it must lead to such public-use of language as influences society in a way which is harmonious with reality again. The method of teaching has to ensure these interconnections (Caravolas 1993 and 1994, ch. 10). This makes certain demands on the teaching material. The harmony between all the members of this chain is grounded in the essential analogy of all the domains of this world, which for Comenius was a fact guaranteed by God.

Comenius treated the problem of language teaching in connection with his philosophical system as well as in practical didactics and textbooks. One consequence in the practice of teaching was that he classified textbooks according to the capabilities of learners. As early as 1657, in the Didactica magna (Comenius 1986a) he distinguished between Vestibulum, Janua, Atrium, and Thesaurus (the last one being devoted to classical authors, but this stage was later dropped), a typical scheme which he adhered to henceforth.

A most important work explaining these matters is Novissima linguarum methodus (Comenius 1957). In it Comenius developed the principles of teaching Latin (or any other language), starting from the nature of language (chaps. I to VII) and then, after pointing out the special role of Latin among all the other languages, sketching out the principles of language teaching in general (chaps. X ff.). In the Methodus, Comenius confirmed many teaching principles of his Didactica magna. But in contrast to the approach adopted in this earlier book he now addressed learned and erudite readers and adjusted the level of his deliberations accordingly (Blekastad 1969, 422-4).

The Novissima linguarum methodus is an extraordinarily rich book which deserves a more detailed comment than can be given here. The greater part discusses the philosophical foundations of adequate language teaching and includes the thoughts of about forty scholars of his time (Sadler 1966, 151). In our lexicographical context only some of those statements will be selected which pertain directly to the two onomasiological works for which Comenius is famous, the Janua linguarum reserata (Comenius 1986b) and the Orbis sensualium pictus (Comenius 1970b). They will be shown to be lexicographical works which directly express a theological and philosophical idea. But, except for a few remarks, they will not be discussed as textbooks in Comenius’s very particular and complex system of teaching (Caravolas 1994, 339-69). They will be discussed as dictionaries.

At the beginning of the Methodus we find the well-known triad:

Tria sunt inprimis, qvibus humanam naturam, supra brutam exaltatam, decoravit Creator: RATIO, ORATIO, & varia liberaqve rerum OPERATIO. / RATIO, est lumen divinum in Homine ... . ORATIO verò est luminis illius qvidam effluxus, quo Homo ea qvae intelligit, aliorum qvoqve intelligentiae clarè ac distinctè explicat. OPERATIO deniqve, est ea qvae intelligit et loqvitur producendi etiam, si vult, facultas, solertia mirabili. (1957, cols. 17/18, 6‑8.)

After this the divine origin and the confusion of languages in Babel which makes culturam linguarum necessary are treated. This is to be done with three instruments:

(1) Nomenclatura Rerum, sive Tabulatura Universi, Verbis aptis contexta. (2) Index Verborum & Phrasium plenus: h.e. Lexicon, seu Dictionarium. (3) Sermonis faciendi artificium certum, h.e. Praecepta de sermonis structura, Grammatica. (1957, col. 50, 4.)

In toto, this nomenclatura shows the work of the supreme architect of the world and of language alike, God. Lexicographically speaking, it is the onomasiological part of the undertaking, the Index being planned as alphabetical (and not to be mentioned any more). Before commenting on the nomenclatura, Comenius quotes Pliny’s history of the world and Julius Pollux’s onomasticon (180 AD), thus indicating to his readers the tradition in which he sees his own work. He then explains the nomenclatura rerum in a paragraph which he obviously thought to be very important because it is printed entirely in italics:

Condendam suademus, Rerum & Verborum Tabulaturam quandam, Universalem: in qva Mundi fabrica tota, & Sermonis humani apparatus totus, parallelè disponantur; Verbis nempe simplicissimis, & sententiis brevissimis, & serie sic una & perpetua, ut finis nisi in fine non reperiatur intermediis omnibus (Rebus & Verbis) tàm non nisi suo loco positis, ut nihil idem repeti opus sit: & omnia tamen sint clara, facilia, fluida, ut ad instar historiae cuivis hominum, & legere ista volupe sit, & intellegere promptum. Et quicunqve haec vidisset, legisset, intellexisset, ut certus sit se vidisse Rerum seriem onmem, & intelligere Lingvam totam. (1957, col. 53, 13.)

This passage contains almost all the ideas that pertain to onomasiological dictionaries in the way which became typical of Comenius: their entries represent the world, the human mind, and language, as if there were three lines running parallel. They are arranged in an unbroken chain in which every item finds its proper place. This arrangement gives them clarity and makes them easily intelligible so that people who see and understand them actually, understand the world and language in toto. Consequently, their expression, which makes use of this understanding, will lead to harmonious communication. As divisions for this tabulatura, Comenius suggests: (i) ‘naturalia’, the world as created by God (ii) ‘artificialia’, the world as created by man; (iii) 'moralia', the way man treats the world which he is entrusted with; and (iv) ‘spiritualia’, everything concerned with religion (see Methodus, Comenius 1957, col. 54, 16; Helmer 1980). This is in accordance with Comenius’s ideas on pansophia which he expressed later in his Consultatio catholica. The mundus naturalis, mundus artificialis, mundus moralis, and mundus spiritualis constitute the state of a harmonious whole. Each of them depends on the nomenclature of phenomena which make up the repective worlds. Thus, nomenclatura, which is identical with the arrangement of Comenius’s onomasiological works, is in fact one of the principles of the pansophical philosophy. It is not merely a lexicographical technique but a philosophical idea.

The division into four classes is certainly not new and can be found in the context of philosophy and natural history in many other authors; but Comenius highlights it by giving it explicit theological reasons. There is also an elaborate explanation of the way in which items should be entered in the tabulatura. Not merely the name, but details must be given referring to:

... Qvid sit? & ad qvid, & qvale, & qvid agat aut patiatur, & cum qvibus vicinis cohaereat, & unumqvodqve: Nominanda itaqve fuerit Res ipsa tota, cum suo FINE. Tùm ejus partes, tanqvam intrumenta, seu media, per qvae suo fini apta est. Tùm qvid singula ista agant, vel patiantur. Vt nihil in Rebus sit essentiale, qvod non observare, verbísque propriis exprimere, doceantur omnes. (1957, col. 54,17.)

All this means that the tabulatura is not a mere list of items in isolation designated by lexemes; it contains entities which only become what they are in a web of delimitations, meanings, functions, and interdependencies. This is exactly the programme which Comenius realized in the way in which he constructed the sentences of the Janua and the Orbis pictus. Taken together, they represent the universitas rerum.

For Comenius, res exist before the mental images which man has of them and these before words (Kraemer 1977, 18-19). Conversely, this means that language, mind, and world have the same extent and cover the same area, provided language use is adapted to the mind, and the mind to reality. Note:

Linguae apparatum (si in sua perfectione spectetur) praegrande qvid esse, ut Mundus ipse, qvem repraesentatum it & amplum capaxqve, ut Mens ipsa, cujus Conceptibus exhauriendis, & in alterius mentem transfundendis, sufficere debet: & deniqve concinnum qvid, omnia sua tam harmonice contexens & connectens, ut harmoniam Rerum, cujus mensuras in se Animus humanus continet, recte exprimat. (1957, col. 23,15. )

This is not only a pedagogical programme for language teaching and language use, it is also a linguistic programme for the construction of a perfect, even a universally intelligible language which has just as many words as there are mental concepts and ontological units in reality. Both transcend the domain of lexicographical thoughts in Comenius’s works. He followed the goal of a perfect language in his (unfinished) Panglottia, part of the comprehensive Consultatio catholica, and the aim of the pan-harmony of man and world in his concept of ‘syncrisis’, the unification of all human knowledge (Přívatská 1987 and 1989) Note:

Est praeterea usus Analyticae proprius ad Rerum inventiones; Syntheticae ad exseqvutiones; Syncriticae ad utrumqve. (Comenius 1966a, col. 118, 64.)

‘Syncrisis’ is Comenius’s own term and concept. It depends very much on analogy which can be found by comparison. ‘Syncrisis ... est actio mentis rem cum re conferentis’ (Lexicon pansophicum, Comenius 1966b, col. 1232).

In the background of this programme we find the concept of encyclopaedic knowledge as it prevailed in the seventeenth century and also the concept of name semantics, in so far as word‑meanings were understood to be names for pre-existing things. The authorities for the concept of encyclopaedic knowledge were Genesis, Aristotelian physics, natural history according to Pliny, Galenic anatomy and anthropology, and general knowledge according to Isidore (Sadler 1966, 60‑9). Fundamental to all of them were the ideas of order and of man as microcosm, that is, as the epitomic repetition of the macrocosm. This is an essentially traditional world-view, as the relevant chapters in the two onomasiological dictionaries also prove, although Comenius was well aware of the new scientific developments (Sadler 1966, 60‑4).

Comenius was a theologian and a philosopher, but he was also a practical schoolman. During his first stay at Lezsno (1628‑32) he had to teach Latin to children who were hardly able to read and write. What he needed was a simple textbook.

In his Novissima linguarum methodus (Comenius 1957, cols. 81/82, 20) he narrates how he came to know the work of the Irish Jesuit, William Bathe (1564‑1614), living in Salamanca, who had collected 1,200 Latin sentences, translated into Spanish, in such a way that no word was repeated. This collection had been known since 1605, well before its publication in 1613. It was a textbook of Latin for Spanish learners. It met with great success and was translated into various other European languages. Comenius mentions editions by Isaac Habrecht and Caspar Schoppe(ius) and the translations of Bathe’s Latin sentences into English, German, Italian, Greek, and Hebrew (see below). By doing so, he indirectly acknowledged Bathe's priority to the title which he adopted for his own work and which has been associated with Comenius rather than with Bathe ever since. Vis-à-vis the many editions and adaptations which appeared of Bathe's original work we must assume that Comenius simply thought he was adding another one, using, as all the adaptors did, the original title with the added adjective reserata and a distinctive subtitle.

From: Werner Hüllen: English Dictionaries 800-1700. The

Topical Tradition. Oxford: Clarendon Press 1999, S. 371-377 (without annotations)