The birth of a dictionary

It started as a small project at Helsinki University. A Norwegian glossary for the next class. Finnish or Swedish being the other language. I added Danish for myself, for that would come next in my studies in Nordic languages. Icelandic would be after that, so I put in that too. And I added English for the fun of it. By and by I started adding some other languages - you never know when they would come in handy. Soon I had a bunch of files in ten languages. Then thirteen.

And then I started thinking that I couldn´t and shouldn´t keep all this for myself - I should share it! Four more languages were incorporated in what now started to look like a budding dictionary. Something for each continent!

Needless to say, I have a thing for languages. My first thought usually is: how do you say this in x-ish? Can´t help studying the local language at the airport or border station, or listening to a foreign melody with increasing curiosity. I am clearly lost in languages, and I hope you will be too, traveling here and there, and cruising in the Mercury Dictionary which could soon be expanding in your computer as well. Lost in the richness of idioms, and just the everyday usage of language. The dictionary is mercurial in nature, changing all the time, always expanding, always making more room for human expression. You have to see it to know it!