| Glossary: Purpose and History |
This is a revision of the fourth major version of the Glossary. The first version appeared in November 1993 as a single unformatted ASCII file, and contained 372 headword entries. The second, with 453 headwords, was released in January 1994, and was prepared using the TeX typesetting language and the LaTeX macro set. A text file extraction was also made. The third edition, with 874 headwords, was released in January 1995.[5] Version 6.1 was dated July 22, 1996. This is version 6.7, essentially an edition of revisions to existing material. Versions 6.2 through 6.6 were internal working versions, and were never released.
This revised edition of the Glossary has 1090 headwords. Although there are only about a dozen new headwords, the changes from version 6.1 are substantial.
The Glossary in its present form greatly transcends its original purpose. Its initial intent was to serve as a reference list for some Witnesses whose native tongue is not English. It provided a table of common {theocratic} and miscellaneous other expressions as currently rendered in American English. It may still be used for that purpose.
Suppose, for instance, a {brother} named Hans, who speaks Pidgin-German, is struggling to relate his life experience in broken English via electronic mail to a brother in another part of the world. He is describing that day when someone dipped him in water in symbol of his dedication to Jehovah. Hans knows that process by the term wasserdunken, but he doubts that English speakers call it by the cognatic equivalent water dunking. So Hans uses a computer program with the ability to search for text matches, or a {hard copy}, and looks through the Glossary for the word water. Eventually he comes upon the headword {baptism}. After reading the entry, Hans says to himself ``Ach, Freude, ich bin so {verhappified}! Dass ist looken like der gut Wört!'' And he is correct.
The Glossary outgrew its original intent long before the first version was circulated. Since its beginning the Glossary has presented much more than a mere vocabulary table for non-English-speaking persons. It has become a labor of love, and a gift to all persons who want to have it. I have attempted to interject some extra features into the work in the hope that they might motivate readers of any tongue who are interested in theocratic speech to consume it from beginning to end.
Despite the Glossary's original purpose, I have made no attempt to simplify the writing for the sake of {foreign speaking} readers. A reader who does not already know English fairly well might find tough sledding ahead; but his English might improve in return for the effort.
| Glossary: Purpose and History |