In quest of influences of Polish language dictionaries on the oldest Polish Sign Language dictionary

Abstract The paper examines whether the authors of very first Polish Sign Language dictionary, Słownik mimiczny dla głuchoniemych i osób z nimi styczność mających ‘A gestural dictionary for deaf and dumb persons who have contact with them’, published in 1879, may been influenced by any spoken monolingual dictionaries available at that time. As there is no historical documentation about circumstances which was compiled, inquiry necessarily relies exclusively on internal evidence: comparison headword spelling, alphabetical ordering, direction cross-references content sample entries. results indicate such influence, if any, only minor, lexicographic strategies applied most likely resulted from authors’ knowledge teaching practice.