LibGuides: Library guide Linguistics: Databases, dictionaries and encyclopedias

General databases

In the list below you can find interdisciplinary databases. These databases are not primarily meant for Linguistics, nevertheless they contain many relevant titles.

RUQuest This link opens in a new window All subjects; journals, books, journal articles
RUQuest is a search engine for the collection of the RU University Library, Nijmegen, and for collections of other libraries worldwide.
RUQuest contains printed and digital books, periodicals, journal articles, book chapters and more.
Full text publications can be opened by clicking 'View full text'.
Tutorial: RUQuest
JSTOR This link opens in a new window General; journal articles

A searchable archive of journal articles, in which the articles are available in full texts and retrievable from the first volume of a journal to three, four or five years ago.
Self-teaching: How to search JSTOR
Related archive: Periodicals Archive Online
Web of Science This link opens in a new window All subjects; journal articles, conference proceedings, books and book chapters, preprints, dissertations and datasets

The Web of Science by Clarivate Analytics contains the Web of Science Core Collection (from 1945-...) with references of international journal articles, conference proceedings, books and book chapters from all scientific disciplines.
It includes data from eight citation indexes:
- Science Citation Index Expanded
- Social Sciences Citation Index
- Arts and Humanities Citation Index
- Conference Proceedings Citation Index - Science (CPCI-S)
- Conference Proceedings Citation Index - Social Science & Humanities (CPCI-SSH)
- Book Citation Index - Science (BKCI-S)
- Book Citation Index - Social Science & Humanities (BKCI-SSH)
- Emerging Sources Citation Index
Chemical indexes:
- Current Chemical Reactions (CCR-EXPANDED)
- Index Chemicus (IC)
Citation indexes offer a unique search method to find later-published journal articles, in which a publication is cited.
Coverage: daily updates

Note: When you, as student/employee of Radboud University/Radboudumc, create alerts and/or save information in Web of Science, Clarivate asks you to create a personal account. If you choose to create a personal account, the responsibility for this Processing of Personal Data lies with you as student/employee.

Self-teaching module: Web of Science Help, Web of Science Platform: Training Resources
Related: Journal Citation Reports

Subject Databases Linguistics

The databases in the list below are specifically aimed at Linguistics. See 'more' for a short description of the database.

ACL (Association for Computational Linguistics ) Anthology The ACL Anthology hosts more than 60,000 papers on the study of computational linguistics and natural language processing.

Linguistics and Language Behavior Abstracts (LLBA) This link opens in a new window
Bibliography, Linguistics, Language Behaviour
In Linguistics and Language Behaviour Abstracts (LLBA), there are references to journal articles, books, American dissertations and book reviews in the field of linguistics and language behaviour.
Coverage: 1973 - present

The Linguist List International linguistics community online Information on language and language analysis LINGUIST is a free resource, run by linguistics students and faculty

MLA International Bibliography This link opens in a new window Bibliography, Linguistics and Literature studies, Articles and books
MLA International Bibliography (Modern Language Association) contains references to journal articles and books in the fields of modern language and literature. Coverage from 1963.
Coverage: 1963 - present
MLA Directory of Periodicals This link opens in a new window Information about journals on Literature studies and Linguistics
The MLA Directory of Periodicals offers detailed information on over 5,500 journals, with 4,400 currently indexed in the MLA International Bibliography. The detailed entries include editorial contact information, as well as frequency, circulation, subscription prices and submission guidelines.
PsycINFO This link opens in a new window Psychology; journal articles, book chapters

A comprehensive database with international coverage of the professional and academic peer reviewed literature in the field of psychology, and the psychological aspects of related disciplines, such as Medicine, Psychiatry, Nursing, Sociology, Education, Pharmacology, Physiology, Linguistics, Communication, and Anthropology.
The database includes references and abstracts from:
- more than 2,000 journals
- dissertations in more than 30 languages
- book chapters and books in the English language
Coverage: 1806 - present, weekly updates
Self-teaching module: PsycINFO Basics
Related databases: PubMed, Web of Science
PubMed This link opens in a new window Biomedical; journal articles
PubMed is a freely accessible database and the most consulted database for biomedical research articles. Its content contains Medline, but with a different search interface and search options.
Coverage: 1946 - present, daily updates
Self-teaching module: PubMed Basics, PubMed Advanced
Related databases: Embase, Cochrane Library, Web of Science

Collections of primary language information

British National Corpus The British National Corpus (BNC) is a 100-million-word collection of samples of a written and spoken language of British English from the later part of the 20th century.

Ethnologue This link opens in a new window
Ethnologue is a database with basic information about all languages of the world. Information can be found about, among other things, the number of users, location, language family, official status, type of use and vitality. There are also linguistic maps of countries and territories.

Linguistic Data Consortium: Catalog Repository of worldwide language based technology research

Treasury of Linguistic Maps Online This link opens in a new window
Linguistic maps
Treasury of Linguistic Maps is a database with linguistic maps containing visualised information on various topics in linguistics.

The World Atlas of Language Structures (WALS) Large database of structural (phonological, grammatical, lexical) properties of languages gathered from descriptive materials (such as reference grammars).

More resources, organisations and inspiration ►

Dictionaries & Encyclopedias

Online reference works for Linguistics. Printed encyclopedias and reference books are available in the Reading Room at the ground floor of the Central Library.

Van Dale online dictionaries This link opens in a new window Dictionaries
The Van Dale online dictionaries contain:
- Van Dale Groot woordenboek van de Nederlandse taal - de Dikke Van Dale
- Van Dale Groot woordenboek Hedendaags Nederlands
- Van Dale Dutch-English / English-Dutch
- Van Dale Dutch-German / German-Dutch
- Van Dale Dutch-French / French-Dutch
- Van Dale Dutch-Spanish / Spanish-Dutch
- Van Dale Dutch-Italian / Italian-Dutch
- Van Dale Dutch-Portugese / Portugese-Dutch
- Van Dale Dutch-Swedish / Swedish-Dutch
- Van Dale Taalhandboek Nederlands
- Van Dale Taalhandboek Engels
- Synoniemen
- Spellinghulp
- Juridisch (Fockema Andreae's Juridisch woordenboek)
Woordenboek der Nederlandsche Taal This link opens in a new window
Oxford English Dictionary (OED) This link opens in a new window
Etymologisch Woordenboek van het Nederlands This link opens in a new window

Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics This link opens in a new window