Dictionaries [See also Encylopedias].
1. Medieval and Renaissance
The origins of French lexicography lie in bilingual French-Latin glossaries of the medieval period, themselves inspired by Latin monolingual glossaries and notably Joannes Balbus's Catholicon (composed c.1286, first published 1460). Bilingual French-Latin glossaries of the 13th and 14th c. deriving from such works include the oldest surviving example, known as the Abavus (c.1285) and the Aalma (second half of the 14th c.), essentially an adaptation of the Catholicon. With Firmin Le Ver's bilingual Dictionarius (1420-40) the number of entries increases to some 45, 000 words. There are only two known examples of exclusively French glossaries in the medieval period, both primarily intended to explain the texts they accompany: ‘Li Ars d'amour’ (c. late 13th/early 14th c.) and a late 15th-c. rhetorical treatise.
The 16th c. is dominated by the typically Renaissance polyglot dictionaries and, from 1552 on, bilingual dictionaries featuring French and another modern language (e.g. Flemish, 1552; Spanish, 1562; English, 1570). The best-known polyglot dictionary is that termed Le Calepin in France. Ambrosius Calepinus's Latin Dictionarium (1502) was constantly augmented during the century until it featured 11 languages, with French included for the first time in 1545.
The most significant publication for the history of lexicography in the 16th c. was Robert Estienne's Dictionnaire français-latin (1539). For all its defects, not least that it is primarily the inverse presentation of his earlier Latin-French dictionary (Dictionarium Latino-Gallicum, 1538), itself preceded by a Latinae linguae thesaurus (1531), the French-Latin version is notable as a precursor of French monolingual dictionaries, for where no Latin equivalent of a French term is available, a French explanation is offered.
2. Seventeenth Century
The most important of subsequent reworkings of Estienne's material was Jean Nicot's Trésor de la langue française (1606), comprising some 18, 000 entries. Nicot still provides Latin equivalents for the French words, but has more sophisticated monolingual entries offering explanations of the meaning of words and details of their orthography, gender, etymology, and usage. From 1606 to 1680 no major original monolingual French dictionary appeared; the majority of works published before 1680 are thus bilingual, and notably Latin-French dictionaries (e.g. Philibert Monet, Inventaire des deux langues française et latine, 1635), although there are also important modern-language bilingual dictionaries (e.g. Cotgrave's French-English dictionary of 1611). Note too Ménage's Origines de la langue française (1650, 2nd edn. 1694), an early French etymological dictionary.
It was therefore not until 1680, some 70 years later than for Italian and Spanish, that the first entirely monolingual dictionary of French appeared, César-Pierre Richelet's Dictionnaire français. Although conceived as a dictionary of good usage, this lexicon of some 25, 500 entries includes a whole range of words shunned by purists, and notably technical terms. Variationist labels indicate the usage and currency of the words and the entries are supported by literary quotations. Richelet's work continued to appear right up to 1811. If Richelet is the ancestor of descriptive dictionaries, Furetière's Dictionnaire universel (1690), embracing some 40, 000 words, with technical and medical terms especially well represented, presages the vast general and encyclopedic dictionaries of the following century. The Dictionnaire de l'Academie française, first promised in the Academy's statutes of 1635, finally appeared in two vols. in 1694. Chapelain's original plan was for the dictionary to feature examples of literary usage on the model of the Italian Crusca dictionary, but this was subsequently revised as work progressed painfully slowly, notably after Vaugelas's death in 1650. The Academy reflects the prescriptive mentality of the age, banishing from its dictionary of some 15, 000 words those terms considered too old, too new, technical, of low register, ‘d'emportement ou qui blessent la pudeur’; in practice, however, it was somewhat more tolerant. The most striking feature is the presentation of the material by roots, so that derivations and compounds are treated under their primes. The exclusion of old and technical terms from the dictionary was compensated for by the Academy's Dictionnaire des arts et des sciences, edited by Thomas Corneille (1694).
3. Eighteenth Century
The different methods of Furetière, Richelet, and the Academy each had their successors in the following century. Following Furetière, the 18th c. particularly favoured universal dictionaries and encyclopedias, the proportions of which increased considerably during the century. We may also note the inventories of specialist and technical terms, such as Augustin-Charles d'Aviler's Dictionnaire d'architecture civile et hydraulique (1755) and the first synonym dictionaries by Gabriel Girard (1718, 1736).
In 1701 Furetière's dictionary had been revised by Basnage de Beauval. The Jesuits of Trévoux then decided to expand the work further by including Latin equivalents, historical information, and additional scientific and technical terms. The resulting Dictionnaire universel français et latin (3 vols., 1704), commonly known as the Dictionnaire de Trévoux, continued to expand until by 1771 it comprised eight folio volumes, only declining in importance in the face of the Encyclopédie.
The Academy published four new editions of its dictionary during the century. The second (1718) continued the Academy's selective policy, but adopted an alphabetical presentation; whilst the third (1740) introduced some spelling reforms. By the fourth (1762) and fifth (1798), some new scientific, technical, and Revolutionary terms were included.
With the general increase in volume of dictionaries came the need for abridged or original pocket dictionaries, especially during the economic crisis of 1780-1820. Initially these covered specialized domains (e.g. Prévost's dictionary of rare and specialized words, the Manuel lexique of 1751), but subsequently more general works appeared. Occasionally, with the new vogue for expansion in the 19th c., abridged dictionaries were re-expanded. Perhaps the most interesting work and best source of information about late 18th-c. usage is Jean-François Féraud's Dictionnaire critique de la langue française (1787-8), with its moderately purist approach and use of literary examples.
4. Nineteenth Century
The 19th c. extended 18th-c. practice in providing large and usually learned dictionaries, although occasionally quality is sacrificed to quantity. These sometimes comprise more than 150, 000 words, include ever more documentation, and become increasingly open to neologisms. Pierre-Claude Victoire Boiste's Dictionnaire universel de la langue française of 1800 (14th edn., 1857), subsequently renamed Pan-lexique, sets the trend in containing an abundant, if somewhat excessive, word list. This was followed by Bescherelle's Dictionnaire national ou Grand dictionnaire critique de la langue (1843). The 19th c. is also typified by the increased use of diachronic material and the citation of classical authors; the best-known example is Littré's Dictionnaire de la langue française (1863-72, supplement 1877). Another major publication was Pierre Larousse's Grand dictionnaire universel du XIXe siècle (1865-90), part dictionary, part encyclopedia, containing a vast but not excessive number of terms and making extensive use of citations from 19th-c. authors. As well as abridged and specialized versions of Larousse's dictionary, we may note the appearance of the Nouveau Larousse illustré (1898-1907). The end of the century saw the publication of the Dictionnaire général de la langue française, edited by Adolphe Hatzfeld, Arsène Darmesteter, and André Antoine Thomas (1898-1900), in which considerable emphasis is placed on the historical material, the etymologies and datings by now becoming more accurate.
Two new editions of the Academy's dictionary appeared in the 19th c. (1835, 1878), and abridged versions and complements of additional terms were also popular (e.g. by Légoarant, 1841). The growing historical preoccupations of the 19th c. are reflected in Frédéric Godefroy's 10 vol. Dictionnaire de l'ancienne langue française (1880-1902). Specialized works continued to appear, such as the synonym dictionaries of Guizot (1809) and Lafaye (1857).
5. Twentieth Century
The 20th c. has witnessed the re-edition of the great 19th-c. dictionaries and the appearance of new large-scale encyclopedic dictionaries. For instance, Larousse's publications include the Larousse du XXe siècle (1928-33), Grand Dictionnaire encyclopédique Larousse (1982), and Grand Larousse de la langue française (1971-8). Special mention must be made of Paul Robert's Dictionnaire alphabétique et analogique de la langue française (1953-64, 1970; 2nd edn., 1985), which includes numerous literary citations from the 16th to the 20th c. and features words associated with the headword through synonymy, antonymy, etc. In 1932-5 the eighth edition of the Academy's dictionary appeared and the ninth is currently being issued in fascicles (1986- ).
Alongside the vast lexicons, there has been notable growth in two areas: concise dictionaires aimed at the general public and specialized works. Larousse, for instance, publishes a whole range of dictionaries, such as the Larousse des débutants (1957), aimed at children and foreigners, or the Larousse de base, dictionnaire d'apprentissage du français (1977). Particularly popular and known for its openness to neologisms is the Petit Larousse, which appears annually. Also worthy of note is Jean Dubois's Dictionnaire du français contemporain (1966), which adopts a structuralist approach. Robert has produced the popular Petit Robert (1967) and the Micro-Robert (1971) containing c.30, 000 ‘mots primordiaux’.
The vast range of specialist works is too extensive to detail. There has been a growth of dictionaries covering earlier periods of the language's history, both large-scale (e.g. Tobler-Lomatzsch's dictionary of Old French, 1925- ) and of more modest proportions. Virtually every aspect of language has been represented in a specialized work, including dictionaries of difficulties, pronunciation, synonymy, neologisms, and argot. Walther von Wartburg's Französisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch (1922- ) dominates etymological dictionaries, but the Robert Dictionnaire historique de la langue française (1992) is worthy of note; there are also valuable more concise dictionaries, notably Bloch and Wartburg's Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue française (1932, 5th edn. 1968).
Two new developments must be mentioned finally. First, the growth of the study of lexicography as an academic discipline, both in its theoretical and historical aspects; and secondly, from 1960 on, the use of mechanized and electronic techniques for the gathering of data and compilation of dictionaries. Most major publishing-houses specializing in dictionaries now plan computerized dictionaries. Use of on-line technology has been of importance in a major 20th-c. project to produce a Trésor de la langue française (TLF), which will cover the history of French in four or five broad periods. Publication has begun for the period 1789-1960 (TLF, XIXe-XXes., 1971- ). As well as using the Inventaire général de la langue française, the project has collected its own computer database of some 90 million examples. Words not selected for the dictionary (to comprise c.85, 000 words) will be published in specialized inventories.
[<auth>Wendy Ayres-Bennett]
Bibliography
- G. Matoré, Histoire des dictionnaires français (1968)
- B. Quemada, Les Dictionnaires du français moderne 1539-1863 (1968)
- Wörterbucher, Dictionaries, Dictionnaires, ed. F. J. Hausmann and others, vol. 2 (1990)
