Lexicography at the "Iorgu Iordan" Institute of Linguistics: The Dictionary of the Romanian Language (DLR) and the Contrastive Dictionary of Synonyms, Analogies and Associations

Marius Sala, Ion Dãnãilã

1. The Dictionary of the Romanian Language

The Dictionary of the Romanian Language-Dicþionarul limbii române (DLR) is the most comprising work in Romanian lexicography, often considered to be of national importance. It is a word depository that enables us to estimate that, both with regard to the number of listed terms and that of meanings and phrases, the Romanian language stands on an equal footing to languages spoken by peoples with older culture. The same as Trésor de la langue française, it may be considered "a monument in Romance philology" (J. Cantera). A depository dictionary could not be easily achieved in the conditions existent in our country and the work has had a troubled history, stretching over more than a century, as it also happened with other works of similar scope. Let me trace back its history.

The idea of compiling a general explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language arose at the beginning of the nineteenth century, a period with great changes in the lexicon. The idea was put forward in the Romanian Academic Society, the forerunner of the Romanian Academy. Since its founding (1867), the Academy has outlined as one of its aims the preparation of a dictionary "as complete and rational as possible, in order to become a guide to the language".

A first attempt was made in 1869, when A. T. Laurian and I. C. Massim started to work out two large volumes, i.e. Dicþionarul limbei române containing words of Latin origin, and Glossariul containing words of foreign form and words of uncertain origin. The two volumes, having 50,000 entries, appeared in 1873 and 1877, respectively. Unfortunately, the Latinized spelling used by their authors makes the reading difficult.

This first attempt came in for a great deal of criticism from the anti-Latinizing members of the Romanian Academy headed by Al. Odobescu. Consequently, in 1884 the compiling of the dictionary was entrusted to B. P. Hasdeu who produced in 1887 and 1893 three volumes of the well-known Etymologicum Magnum Romaniae covering letters A and B (to the word bãrbat). The wealth of information is proof to Hasdeu 's exceptional encyclopedic knowledge and fills with admiration the reader even nowadays. Although vast, this work was uncompleted as it left aside nineteenth century neologisms.

The academic forum denied Hasdeu the further assignment of the dictionary and, in 1897 appointed Alexandru I. Philippide, who was living in Jassy, to achieve this goal. He conceived it as a depository of the Romanian word stock "an inventory of any language fact, be it even accidental". With huge effort, helped by a group of collaborators, he succeeded in gathering several thousand quotations for the word file. However, when the "Dictionary Commission" asked Philippide to eliminate most of the recent lexical borrowings, he gave up the task (1905).

In the following year (1906) there was another attempt - the fourth - to find the right person for fulfilling the job. This time the Romanian Academy chose Sextil Puºcariu (aged 29 at that moment!). In 43 years (up to 1949) S. Puºcariu and his Cluj team published letters A, B, C, D (to de inclusively). F, G, H, I, Î, J and L (to lojniþã inclusively), 3075 pages in all, containing some 60 000 words and variants. This is the sole attempt known under the name of Dicþionarul Academiei (DA). From 1949 to 1952 work at the dictionary was resumed in Bucharest at the Institute of Linguistics headed by Iorgu Iordan. The rest of the letters were finished then in a first version..