Jean Pruvost: "Our passion for language and dictionaries is linked to our history"

Everyone has their little story with dictionaries.

Because everyone has leafed through their little stories.

Their words are our words.

Le Larousse, Le Robert, the Dictionary of the French Academy, the Dictionary of Francophones ... Many are these works which guide our way of speaking and thinking.

But do we know where they come from?

How do they differ and what is their function?

Jean Pruvost, linguist and professor of universities emeritus tells this formidable story in

(Ophrys).

"READ ALSO -" The dictionary of the French Academy offers a look at the history of our language "

LE FIGARO.

- At the beginning of your book, you write: "The dictionaries published since the 16th century must be counted by thousands."

How to explain this passion?

Jean PRUVOST.

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This passion is particularly French, especially concerning language dictionaries and encyclopedic dictionaries. It is undoubtedly due to a desire for standardization of the French language which was asserted as early as the 16th century and to the enormous role played by an institution that does not exist in any other country: the French Academy. Today, we are in fact the only country in the world to have nine editions of a dictionary which, since 1694, has the mission of describing usage. It is a kind of guideline and for a long time other dictionaries have defined themselves in relation to this one. This passion for the language is also linked to our history in France. The fact that we had great monarchies, certainly absolute, made it possible to create around their court, that of François I and Louis XIV in particular,a strong state and literary language.

Thus, your first sentence is: "The dictionary is the work of civilization."

Yes. It is no coincidence that at the end of the 17th century, we felt this need to have a common code based on a language to be made national and international. At that time, three dictionaries appeared: the very first monolingual dictionary, Richelet's French Dictionary in 1680, then Furetière's Universal Dictionary in 1690 and that of the French Academy in 1694. French thus took on a national value. strong. At that time, Versailles was a showcase of France for all of Europe and in the same way, our dictionaries were our linguistic ambassadors. These first monuments of the French language were in their own way wonderful "dictionaries of French as a foreign language". Thanks to them, we learned the French language throughout Europe.

"In the 16th century, a cultivated person mastered three languages: the dialect of his region of birth, the French language, that of power but also literary, cultural, and Latin"

Reading your book, we understand that the dictionary, although it is not always called that, goes back to Antiquity.

Aristophanes had also founded a school of lexicography.

Yes, since Antiquity, curiosity for languages ​​has not been lacking with the desire to collect existing words. You should know that in Italy, the Romans had a certain admiration for the grammatical and lexical knowledge of the Greeks. There is perhaps, moreover, an analogy to be drawn between our early twenty-first century and this Antiquity: what presided over the description of the vocabulary then passed through the areas described, and not the strict alphabetical order which would later become a tool for both arbitrary and rational, allowing the incessant addition of new words. Today we find this thematic desire through our digital consultation. When we look for a word, we consult it directly through our keyboards without going through alphabetical order.However, let us hope that we continue to learn the alphabetical order!

In the Middle Ages, the dictionary was intended mainly for religious. It is necessary, you write, to wait for the literate bourgeoisie for it to take off in the 13th century.

Its development can be seen from the Renaissance and especially in the 17th century. Previously, the collections of words being intended for clerics, it was a question of helping them by translating Latin words into French. The revolution was that of Robert Estienne who, in 1539, installed the French word first, followed by their Latin equivalent and already some explanations in French. The fact that the monolingual dictionaries came from the bilingual Latin-French, then French-Latin dictionaries is due to the fact that in Europe, the great religious text was from the start the Bible translated from Greek into Latin, a Latin used as the language of European culture. In the 16th century, a cultivated person mastered three languages: the dialect of his region of birth, langue d'oc or d'oïl, the French language, that of power but also literary, cultural,and Latin, language of study and universal. In truth, if it is good that the French language is today the first one for an entire nation, we have lost this initial trilingualism and we suffer in part from a snobbery of English at all costs.

The French is then unstable and the spelling too ...

There was a time when the tongue was quite flexible. In the 15th century, we could say habitation, habitation or habitation. This is very noticeable in Rabelais where the lexicon was based on a language that was still "fluent". Then, in the 17th century, the language normalized alongside centralization and absolute monarchy. Power but also writers then felt the need for a standard which dictionaries would echo. This code is written in parallel with the dialects which of course continue to exist. On the other hand, the spelling is still poorly fixed in its details, the spelling of Richelet, Furetière and the French Academy, differs. Richelet chooses an orthography closer to the pronunciation, while Furetière and the French Academy take into account their etymological origin.Let us remember that the first edition of the Dictionary of the Academy gathered the words by family, enemy and intimacy followed by the word friendship, even if references were made to their alphabetical order. In the 18th century, spelling became more and more standardized, with the approval of printers.

“With Victor Hugo, the border between chastened language and familiar language is opened.

All you have to do is open Les Misérables to see the decompartmentalization between all the registers!

"

How do the Furetière, Richelet and Académie française dictionaries differ?

They differ firstly because there are two dictionary of private enterprise, that of Richelet and that of Furetière, and a dictionary of the institution, that of the Académie française. Academicians do not earn money writing a dictionary and work without commercial pressure. Then, each of these three dictionaries obeys a different perspective. Richelet offers a dictionary rich in a few quotes describing the language, it is the ancestor of the dictionaries of Littré and Paul Robert. Furetière, for her part, was expanding her nomenclature to include technical vocabulary. He is not interested simply in the use but in what the word describes conceptually and concretely. His dictionary is therefore rather encyclopedic, and in its own way prefigures Pierre Larousse's dictionary. Finally, the French Academy,by a kind of modesty on the part of the academicians themselves, counting in their ranks Corneille, Racine, Boileau, La Fontaine, avoided citing himself and forged all his examples. Thus, some are from Racine or Corneille, which is not without being touching! Thomas Corneille, brother of Pierre Corneille, elected by the rest in his chair, offered in 1694, a Dictionary of Arts and Sciences, with the approval of the French Academy. This underlines that the Academy also made a good place in terms of specialty. If the first edition of the Dictionary of Usage is of weak nomenclature, it will continue to increase in edition to the point that the ninth, free on the Internet, as are now all editions since 1694, will exceed 60,000 words. and therefore be equivalent to that of Petit Robert or Petit Larousse.

In the 18th century, you write, the French Revolution "was not only political, it was also linguistic".

That is to say?

The classical period including, with regard to the language the 17th and 18th centuries, offers a regulated vocabulary.

It has sometimes been said that Voltaire was more classic than Corneille!

But with the Revolution and then romanticism, we are witnessing a great decompartmentalization of genres.

With Victor Hugo, the border between chastened language and familiar language is opened.

Just open

to see the decompartmentalization between all registers!

The Battle of Hernani symbolizes this opening of the lexicon and genres: the authors of dictionaries will settle in this movement.

In passing, let us recall that women of letters played a big role in the salons of the 17th and 18th century by polishing and refining the language of men.

In fact, at the beginning of the 19th century, we moved to an extensive lexicography: we recorded a large number of words.

"An online dictionary, without a paper version usefully delimited in the number of its words, can record everything without an in-depth definitional study"

The 20th century brought about the democratization of dictionaries.

The second half of this century is called "half a century of gold" in French lexicography.

Does the role of the dictionary change then?

Yes, and to understand it, it is a question of going back in time. At the beginning of the 19th century, there was an essential discovery, the existence of the Indo-European language family bringing together almost all European languages, with a first strain, undoubtedly near the Urals, having in successive waves irrigated linguistically. Europe and part of India. We then began to take a different look at languages ​​and was born historical linguistics in search of links between the various major European languages, hence the development of etymological dictionaries. All this will nourish the Large Encyclopedic Dictionary of the XIXth century of Larousse and Littré, just as in the lineage of Littré the Analogical and Alphabetical Dictionary of Paul Robert.So here we are in the second half of the twentieth century with this historical linguistics confronted with structuralism. On the one hand, we are interested in the history of words, on the other, we observe the words in search of a system, in synchrony. This debate will stimulate lexicographers. Finally, we must not forget that at this time, we were at the heart of the Thirty Glorious Years and that apart from the Dictionary of the Academy and the Treasury of the French language, born from the CNRS, lexicography remains linked to logics. commercial. We buy, we sell the dictionary: it becomes the king object! This is how we see all kinds of dictionaries arriving on shelves, schools and others ... It's a good time. Each year the Petit Larousse, with the rest of high quality, offers its new vintage.The vintage, a link between the 20th and the 21st century, will thus sell more than a million copies!

The arrival of new technologies has created an urgency in the language. Does French change faster? Should the dictionary follow this acceleration?

The role of radio and television channels is becoming decisive, just like the Internet: new words born from the news spread almost instantly. Such a development leaves lexicographers no respite: they are confronted with a growing river of words. Online dictionaries can then take these new words and install them in their nomenclature without worrying about their frequency. This is where the dictionaries differ. An online dictionary, without a paper version usefully delimited in the number of its words, can record everything without an in-depth definitional study. Thus, some go fishing for the slightest word without the appropriate perspective and go well beyond the first 60,000 words. It has recently been seen with the pronoun "iel", implying inclusive writing far from a significant frequency.Alain Rey, very opposed to the latter as he wrote, would have been prudent before introducing an element relating to “closed series” for centuries, and relating here to an activism. The largest dictionaries are not immune to a misstep ... On the other hand, the Petit Larousse, with a great linguist like Bernard Cerquiglini, always waits for a word to really settle in use before integrate it. The reputation of a reference dictionary depends on it.always waits for a word to really settle into usage before integrating it. The reputation of a reference dictionary depends on it.always waits for a word to really settle into usage before integrating it. The reputation of a reference dictionary depends on it.

Is the dictionary of the twenty-first century less a dictionary of good use than of uses?

The description of the different uses has intensified. Words from the Francophonie interest us, dictionaries list them more and more. But we must be right, general dictionaries of the French language of about 60,000 words cannot be the receptacle of everything that exists under penalty of causing us to lose the necessary references, for example the first 60,000 words. From a certain threshold, it is better to consult a specialized dictionary. In its own way, the Dictionnaire des francophones (DDF) on the internet presents itself, for example, as an immense net on words without quantitative limits and without in-depth analysis of words, it is its specialty, useful. As for the Academy's dictionary, also free on the Internet,it offers within 60,000 words not only very neat definitions but links on which you just have to click to benefit from impressive word banks whether it is France term for technical terms, or words from the francophonie with the panfrancophone lexical database, without forgetting the normative advice of the Dire ne pas dire type created by Yves Pouliquen. The multiplicity of links, there is undoubtedly the future.