Forty years after they began the work – and almost four hundred years after receiving their first commission – the Parisian intellectuals finally produced a new edition of the descriptive French dictionary.
The complete ninth edition of the Dictionnaire de l’Académie Française was officially presented to President Macron this afternoon at the magnificent 17th century Collège des Quatre-Nations on the left bank of the Seine.
That’s where the 40 wise men and women of the French Academy – so-called immortality (immortals) chosen for their contributions to the French language and literature – have met since the body was first created by Cardinal Richelieu in 1635.
Their task at first was “to give certain rules to our language, to make it pure and eloquent” – which is why they started writing their first dictionary.
However, the work proved so slow – the first book was not produced until 1694 and today it takes more than a year to find one letter of the alphabet – that the viability of the business is increasingly being questioned.
“The effort is commendable, but it is too late to be of any use,” a group of linguists wrote in the Liberation newspaper on Thursday.
This ninth edition replaces the eighth, which was completed in 1935. Work began in 1986, and the previous three parts – up to the letter R – have been released.
Today the last part (the last Zzz) was added, which means the job is done.
In its press release, the Academy said the dictionary is “a mirror of the period from the 1950s to the present day,” and has 21,000 new entries compared to the 1935 version.
But many “modern” words added in the 1980s or 90s are outdated. And such is the speed of language change, many words in use today are too new to make it.
So common words like the tiktoker, vlog, smartphone again an emoji – all of which are available in the latest commercial dictionaries – are not in the Academie book. On the other hand these “new” words include concepts such as continuity soda, a sauna, yuppie again the superette (small supermarket).
In the latest section of RZ, the authors included a new thought about outsourcing to women, including options for women (which did not exist before) in positions like these. embassy again the professor. However, the print versions of the previous sections have not changed, because for many years the Academie has been fighting a vigilante action behind it.
Likewise, a third of the new dictionary – including the letter M – defines marriage as a union between a man and a woman, which in France no longer exists.
“How can anyone pretend that this collection can serve as a reference for anyone?” the group asks, noting that online dictionaries are large and moving quickly.
Under its president, the author Amin Maalouf, the dictionary committee meets every Thursday morning and after a discussion gives its decision on the definitions drawn up in the first way by outside experts.
Among the “immortals” are the English poet and French expert Michael Edwards, who told the newspaper Le Figaro how he tried to get the Academy to revive this long-forgotten name. the better (low).
“French needs it, because as every student of English and French knows, there is no such thing as ‘shallow’,” he said. Sadly, he failed.
Negotiations – long — are already underway for the 10th edition to begin.
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