Pour une nouvelle typologie des dictionnaires historiques. Emprunts – mots savants – formations scientifiques – mots néolatins

Abstract

AbstractThe historical dictionaries of the Romance language, as well as the individual Romance languages, are all based - in line with the tradition of the history of science - on the dichotomy of “inherited” vs. “borrowed” lexicon, while in general the sound laws provide the basis for the distinction. From this point of view, the group of “half-taught” forms remains problematic, and the scientific neologisms, ignored by Diez and Meyer-Lübke, are typologically classified incorrectly as supposed borrowings from (Greco-)Latin. The Romans did not know any kind of “virology”, due to which variola vaccina is not a borrowing from Latin, but a scientific neologism from Neo-Latin (such as, e. g., vitamina), which cannot be equated typologically with known (Greco-)Latinisms from antique texts (such as, e. g., fr. légal or sp. gramatical). The Neo-Latin forms, which primarily stem from the academic vocabulary (from Humanism until the 20th century), represent a constantly growing class of word formations which should neither be characterized as “external” nor as “internal”, but are to be understood as typical products of scientific communication which follow their own rules of distribution. The attempts to claim such formations for individual Romance languages usually constitute nationalistically motivated interpretations, because the rules applied here by the respective creator are true beyond the individual language and it cannot be justified formally that, for instance, gerontologia originated in the German speaking part of Europe or telecratia in the Francophone area, and that the corresponding Neo-Latinisms can be identified. All Central and Western European linguistic zones have participated in these developments and the scientists have the relevant language competence; thus, the first existing references have to be ascertained and the filiations displayed, before a convincing genealogy (e. g., for astro-, rhino-, neo- etc.) can be postulated and defended. This intermediate space between “internal” and “external” forms has to be reviewed for all sciences and be made available to the single-language and the interlingual lexicography, as well as the research on internationalisms, if we want historical dictionaries to serve also as cultural-historical documents. It should be noted in particular that the majority of modern neologisms belong to this group, which is where the most methodological as well as documentary deficits subsist in the lexicography of the European languages. The erroneous practice to attribute cultural vocabulary rather schematically to a fictional etymologia remota still exists.