Abstract
This paper analyses an anonymous French-Arabic dictionary preserved in Paris, Bibliothèque des Missions étrangères. I argue that it seems to be a copy of a dictionary compiled by the early modern French Orientalist and diplomat François Pétis de la Croix, the younger. Beyond the question of authorship, I survey the themes and structure of the dictionary and discuss the compiler’s cultural insights into Ottoman and Safavid societies and the cultural barriers that his translations reveal.
Highlights
Dictionaries, grammars and conversation books were important tools in the seventeenth century for cross-cultural contacts
This paper analyses an anonymous French-Arabic dictionary preserved in Paris, Bibliothèque des Missions étrangères
I argue that it seems to be a copy of a dictionary compiled by the early modern French Orientalist and diplomat François Pétis de la Croix, the younger
Summary
The Missions étrangères were founded in Paris between 1658 and 1663 and run since 1659 by the Propaganda Fide in Rome. Du Mans taught him the basics of Persian.15 It took Pétis de la Croix some time to find a suitable local teacher who spoke Arabic well. In the Ottoman capital, Pétis de la Croix served as secretary for the French ambassadors Charles Marie François Olier, Marquis de Nointel (1635–1685; ambassador in Istanbul from 1670–1679), for whom he translated a great number of letters exchanged between the two courts as proof for his philological competence, and Gabriel-Joseph de Lavergne, Comte de Guilleragues (1628–1684; ambassador in Istanbul from 1679–1684) After his return to Paris, he engaged in translating various Arabic, Persian and Turkish historical and literary works as well as diplomatic messages and reports. As already stated above, other hands, using different inks, can be found
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