Dictionnaire Illustré Latin-Français

The ''Dictionnaire Illustré Latin-Français'' (; ''Illustrated Latin–French Dictionary'') is a dictionary of Latin, described in French. Compiled by the French philologist Félix Gaffiot (1870–1937), it is commonly eponymized « Le Gaffiot » ("The Gaffiot") by the French. For Francophone scholars of Latin, the ''Dictionnaire'' has become the classic authority of choice. It was first published in 1934, upon completion of the work carried out by Gaffiot, which had been commissioned by the publisher, Hachette.

The ''Dictionnaire'' is mentioned in the forty-fifth of the 480 memories recalled by Georges Perec in his ''Je me souviens'' (''I remember'').

Layout and appearance

In its original, unabridged form, the ''Dictionnaire'' is an imposing work numbering over 1,700 pages. Its illustrations and its typography have made it famous.

The revised and augmented edition of the ''Dictionnaire'', published in November 2000, added a colour atlas, a bibliography, a chronology, the rules of Latin scansion, and tables explaining Roman weights, measures, coinage.

Reception and augmentation

The ''Dictionnaire'' superseded the Latin–French dictionary of Quicherat and Daveluy, which had predominated in Francophone studies of Latin since 1844. In the subsequent decades, Gaffiot’s ''Dictionnaire'' has established itself everywhere, in both its complete and its abridged editions. In November 2000, a new, modernised edition of the ''Dictionnaire'' was published, the fruit of the labours of Pierre Flobert, based on seventy thousand index cards (fifty thousand for common nouns and twenty thousand for proper nouns).

Criticism

In the light of the most recent studies, some twenty-first–century authors have highlighted some minor errors and malapproximations in the work of Félix Gaffiot; as, for example, in his treatment of the respective usages of '' ā'' (preconsonantal) and '' ab'' (prevocalic). The journalist Ugo Rankl also claimed, in an article in ''Le Point'' dated March 2001, that the original 1934 edition of the ''Dictionnaire'' had been expunged of any term with sexual connotations;Ugo Rankl, «&nbs
Les grivoiseries du nouveau "Gaffiot"
 » in ''Le Point'', № 1,485 (2 March 2001), page 72 however, the briefest of consultations of the 1934 edition finds that many such terms ''are'' present in the ''Dictionnaire'', but that they have been given allusive or indirect translations. These were reintroduced in the latest edition of the ''Dictionnaire'' by Pierre Flobert.

Notes and references

External links

The entire 1934 edition of the ''Dictionnaire'', scanned and searchable by headword, hosted by DicFro.


* ttp://digital-gaffiot.sourceforge.net/ A Japanese initiative to digitise the complete text of the 1934 edition.
The complete 2016 digital edition
in pdf format.

gaffiot.fr, dictionnaire latin-français
an online version of the above.

The complete 2016 digital edition
in Stardict format, used by various dictionary programs, including GoldenDict an
Fora

{{DEFAULTSORT:Dictionnaire Illustre Latin-Francais
French bilingual dictionaries
Latin dictionaries
20th-century books in Latin