Frédéric Godefroy, Dictionary of Old French Language (9th to 15th century)

THE REFERENCE BOOK FOR THE STUDY OF OLD FRENCH

The Dictionary of old french language and all its dialects from the 9th to the 15th century (1881-1902) is “ the essential element ” of old French lexicography (Georges Matoré), a incomparable dictionary of more than 20 million words.

The dictionary’s nomenclature (more than 160 000 head entries) gives all the wealth of the old French language: words from the Middle Ages that modern language has dropped, unless these words have survived with new meanings that have replaced the old. Collecting examples from all kinds of sources – printed papers, books and archives of libraries – F. Godefroy tried to follow the history of words in the spoken language, dialects, names of persons and places. In short, Godefroy’s Dictionary gathers the richest collection of words and forms it was possible to create.

Godefroy not only collected “well-constructed and long-term” words used by the best authors of the 11th, 12th, and 13th centuries (about 370 000 extracts of authors). He also collected all other forms of words, exploring the 15th century, even scientific or juridical terms taken from French and Latin archives.

FIELDS OF INTEREST

Literature and medieval studies, old French, history, linguistic history, lexicography

EDITORIAL TEAM

Presented by Jean Dufournet, Emeritus Professor at the University of Paris-Sorbonne nouvelle
Published by Claude Blum, Professor at the Sorbonne, with the collaboration of Jean Dufournet