The Business of Languages in Postlethwayt’s Universal Dictionary of Trade and Commerce (1774 [1751])

The Enlightenment was a time when intellectuals believed that information and knowledge could change the world for the better. Among the countless European publications of the period there were many encyclopaedical and lexicographical works that disseminated and defined the words and things used by scholars in fields such as economics, art, physics and science. This paper focuses on the English Universal Dictionary of Trade and Commerce by Malachy Postlethwayt (1774 [1751]) taking into consideration the author’s involvement in the contemporary debate on the teaching of modern languages and his organised plan to study them at the British Mercantile College. His dictionary was immediately recognised as one of the most complete contributions to trade in the English language and is still regarded as one of the most important works on the knowledge of foreign and domestic trade in eighteenth-century England. Furthermore, from a political and practical perspective, Postlethwayt intended his dictionary as a respectable guide, especially for young British merchants. Thus, his work laid the foundations for the establishment of a formal academic mercantile education for which the author planned a modern curriculum that, in addition to traditional subjects, included a mastery of spoken and written English for business, public administration and law and a high proportion of instruction in modern languages.