L'informatisation du Dictionnaire étymologique ou Origines de la Langue Françoise de Gilles Ménage (1694) [1994, rptd. 1995, 1996, 2008]
Abstract
Computerization of the DEOLF holds an indisputable interest for lexicography, the history of grammar and linguistic theories. Ménage's work on the French language, extensive and varied, restricts the reader to partial assessments, necessarily imperfect (limited corpora unrepresentative of the whole). Computerization, reconciling horizontal and vertical readings, offers exhaustive analyses, faithful to the text converted into a database.
Why computerize the DEOLF rather than another work? The difficulties of choice are inherent in the organization of Ménage's various works on language, in their complementarity: despite the different genres — dictionaries or treatises on language and usage — and the autonomous publication of the Origines de la Langue Françoise (1650), Origini della Lingua Italiana (1669, 1685), Observations sur la Langue Françoise (1672, 1675-6), and the DEOLF (1694), the progression from one to another reveals the stages of Ménage's research and linguistic reflection. His last work, the DEOLF, constitutes the most complete form of his lexicographical undertaking: converting it into a database is to recognize its place in the history of early dictionaries.
Far from betraying the author and his work, from causing the Book to be forgotten, the (non-fragmented) digitization of the DEOLF will have the extraordinary merit of offering a synoptic view of the functioning of the dictionary, its semiotic systems and their different relevance.
The DEOLF is not usually regarded as a general language dictionary, but it far exceeds its object, etymology: it is indeed a key work, leading from Nicot to Littré, and it is time to appreciate its linguistic role, both synchronic and diachronic, for subsequent lexicography.
Why computerize the DEOLF rather than another work? The difficulties of choice are inherent in the organization of Ménage's various works on language, in their complementarity: despite the different genres — dictionaries or treatises on language and usage — and the autonomous publication of the Origines de la Langue Françoise (1650), Origini della Lingua Italiana (1669, 1685), Observations sur la Langue Françoise (1672, 1675-6), and the DEOLF (1694), the progression from one to another reveals the stages of Ménage's research and linguistic reflection. His last work, the DEOLF, constitutes the most complete form of his lexicographical undertaking: converting it into a database is to recognize its place in the history of early dictionaries.
Far from betraying the author and his work, from causing the Book to be forgotten, the (non-fragmented) digitization of the DEOLF will have the extraordinary merit of offering a synoptic view of the functioning of the dictionary, its semiotic systems and their different relevance.
The DEOLF is not usually regarded as a general language dictionary, but it far exceeds its object, etymology: it is indeed a key work, leading from Nicot to Littré, and it is time to appreciate its linguistic role, both synchronic and diachronic, for subsequent lexicography.
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