Les Dictionnaires Larousse: genèse et évolution ed. by Monique C. Cormier, Aline Francœur

Abstract

840 Reviews the insights that such an approach offers into the struggle of creating a literature of one's own in a language which was initially the invaders'. On the contrary, the highly innovative theoretical framework provided here convincingly succeeds, tomy mind at any rate, in illuminating both the work of the individual authors it deals with and the nature of the hybrid cultures from which they emerged. UNIVERSITY OF GLAMORGAN JANE AARON Le Moyen franfais: evolution de la langue. By PETERA. MACHONIS. New Orleans: Presses Universitaires du Nouveau Monde. 2005. 205 pp. $49.95. ISBN i 931948-og-7. This is awell-thought-out and highly accessible textbook aimed at a student audience, although inmy view a little too unsophisticated for graduate students and researchers in the field. Peter A. Machonis presents a user-friendly overview of both the external and internal situation of the French language between the fourteenth and sixteenth centuries, which iswell suited to undergraduates who already have a basic knowledge of linguistics and are following courses in the history of the French language. The book is set out in seven chapters which consider the socio-political situation of France at this time and which additionally examine the development of the or thographic system and the major phonetic and structural changes of the Middle French period. Despite the deliberately simple style, an extensive range of material is presented (including the major debates of the period-such as etymologically vs phonetically based orthography, ouistes vs non-ouistes, etc.) and extracts from manu scripts are usefully reproduced in order to illustrate concepts such as the Gothic script and Meigret's use of quasi-musical notation to represent intonation. The final chapter contains a selection of seven texts taken from the work ofMachaut, Froissart, Villon, Rabelais, de Navarre, and Montaigne and part of the Cent nouvelles nouvelles. Every chapter and each text is followed by a helpful set of exercises, suitable for use in seminar-style discussions. As this is a book onMiddle French, there is inevitably an assumption that its readers will already have some familiarity with the internal and external developments of the Old French period, although the introduction also contains abrief (four-page) account of themost salient linguistic features of Old French. While recognizing the value for students of having such an account at the beginning of the book (presumably for ease of reference), I felt that this was a weak spot, as the (unavoidable) brevity of this section detracted from its usefulness. Itmight have been preferable to refer students instead to the book's companion volume on Old French (Peter A. Machonis, Histoire de la langue: du latin a l'ancienfranfais (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, I990)) or to other books on the period. However, this is aminor point. Le Moyen franfais is awelcome addition to undergraduate reading lists on the history of the French language. PETERHOUSE, CAMBRIDGE MARI C. JONES Les Dictionnaires Larousse: genese et evolution. Ed. by MONIQUE C. CORMIER and ALINE FRANCCEUR. (Parametres) Quebec: Presses de l'Universite de Montreal. 2005. 330 pp. $24.95. ISBN 2-7606-I991-5. First of all, the title ismisleading; asMonique Cormier says in her introduction, the occasion for the volume is the centenary of the Petit Larousse illustre and the MLR, 10I.3, 2006 841 great majority of the articles are either about the PLI or more generally on school dictionaries. The title should therefore more correctly read Pierre Larousse et lePetit Larousse illustre or Pierre Larousse et ledictionnaire scolaire. I shall now comment on what tome is of significance in this volume. In Jean Pruvost's first article we read that Pierre Larousse was more than a lexico grapher; he was an innovative teacher (village schoolmaster inBurgundy), awriter of French manuals (grammar and lexicology), bookseller, publisher, printer, a practical and ambitious businessman. Pruvost's second piece deals with Larousse's predeces sors and models for the Grand Dictionnaire universel (his magnum opus), his Nouveau dictionnaire de la langue fran_raise (predecessor of the twentieth-century PLI), and lexicographical methodology. Jean-Claude Boulanger's article on school dictionaries (dictionnaires scolaires) con tains a historical study of school dictionaries from Pierre Larousse to the present day...