Les débuts de la lexicographie multilingue roumaine: ressorts pragmatiques et influences culturelles

Abstract

The Beginnings of Romanian Multilingual Lexicography: Pragmatic Sources and Cultural Influences. The beginnings of Romanian multilingual lexicography are deeply rooted in the first religious texts translated from Slavonic on the territory of the Romanian Principalities. The first dictionaries were aimed at fulfilling practical needs, being conceived as annexes to Slavonic or translated religious literature circulating at the time on the Romanian territory. This study provides an analysis of the first Romanian lexicographic projects, identifying their prototypes and describing the pragmatic background that these lexicographic initiatives were based on. Many of these works have sadly been lost, while others have been just partially preserved in private libraries. In these conditions, for the reconstruction of the Romanian lexicography belonging to that specific period, we resorted to two categories of sources: the notations and testimonies of the authors of the first lexicographic projects, and studies on the old Romanian lexicography. As they were not based on the rigorous scientific conception of a proper lexicographic school, the first Romanian dictionaries reflect the initiative of some scholars, revealing both their perspective on the role of such lexicographic tools and the stage of development of the Romanian language at the time.