Diccionario de la lengua española de la Real Academia Española
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Diccionario de la lengua española de la Real Academia Española or DRAE is the most authoritative dictionary of Castilian Spanish. It is produced and edited by the Real Academia Española (Royal Spanish Academy), and its first edition was published in 1780. The twenty-second and most recent edition was published in 2001. An advance edition of the 23rd has been available for consultation online since April 2005.
Contents |
[edit] Origin and development
When the Real Academia Española (RAE) was founded in 1713, one of its primary objectives was to create a dictionary of Castilian Spanish. Its first endeavor was the six-volume Diccionario de Autoridades from 1726 to 1739. Based upon this work, the DRAE itself was drawn up as an abridged version and released in 1780. The full title of this first edition was the Diccionario de la lengua castellana compuesto por la Real Academia Española, reducido á un tomo para su más fácil uso. According to its prologue, the DRAE was published to give the general public access to a dictionary during the long time between the first and second editions of the more exhaustive Autoridades dictionary, thus offering a cheaper and easier alternative. By the time a second edition of the DRAE was published, it had become the principal dictionary and left its ancestor far behind. The last edition of Autoridades was published in 1793.
The decision to add, modify, or delete words has historically been made by the Real Academia Española itself, in consultation with other language authorities (especially those in Latin America) when there was any uncertainty. This process occurred between 1780 and 1992, but since the 1992 edition, the RAE and the 21 separate academies throughout Latin America collaborate to produce the Dictionary.
Editions of the DRAE (year and edition): 1780 (1ª) – 1783 (2ª) - 1791 (3ª) – 1803 (4ª) - 1817 (5ª) – 1822 (6ª) – 1832 (7ª)– 1837 (8ª)– 1843 (9ª) – 1852 (10ª) – 1869 (11ª) – 1884 (12ª) – 1899 (13ª) – 1914 (14ª) – 1925 (15ª) – 1936/1939 (16ª) – 1947 (17ª) – 1956 (18ª) – 1970 (19ª) – 1984 (20ª) - 1992 (21ª) - 2001 (22ª).
[edit] Formats
Until the twenty-first edition, the DRAE was published exclusively on paper. The 2001 edition was offered on CD-ROM as well as in its traditional paper format. The twenty-second edition has not only preserved these two formats, it has been offered on the Internet with free access to all users. This digital version is in truth a hybrid between the most recent print edition and the future twenty-third edition. It incorporates modified definitions that will eventually be found in the twenty-third.
[edit] Interesting facts
The fourth DRAE edition (1803) introduced and incorporated the digraphs ch and ll into the Castilian alphabet as separate letters and part of alphabetical organization. That decision was overturned in 1994 (at the tenth meeting of the Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española) where they were re-ordered in concordance with the Latin alphabet. Also in 1803, the letter "X" was replaced with "J" when its pronunciation was identical to that of the guttural "J", and the circumflex accent "^" was eliminated.
The earliest editions were much more extensive; they included Latin translations of the entry, in some cases gave usage examples (especially in popular phrases), and summarized the word's etymology. (Modern editions do the same, but very concisely.) The earliest editions also had X entries that no longer appear.
[edit] Titles throughout history
- Diccionario de la lengua castellana compuesto por la Real Academia Española, title of the first (1780) through fourth (1803) editions.
- Diccionario de la lengua castellana por la Real Academia Española, title of the fifth (1817) though fourteenth (1914) editions.
- Diccionario de la lengua española, fifteenth edition (1925) onward.
[edit] Criticism
In 2006 The Spanish Federation of Jewish Communities expressed concern that some of the dictionary's entries and definitions relating to Judaism were offensive.[1] One of the definitions given for sinagoga (synagogue) is "a meeting for illicit ends." The regular meaning for sinagogue is given first, and the pejorative sense is marked as such. Yerba-buena, an association of Spanish Gitanos (often called Gypsies in English), believes that one of the definitions of Gitano ("one who practices deceit or who tricks") is offensive and could encourage racism. (Nevertheless, the term gitano can actually mean "trickster" in Spanish. Other Spanish dictionaries also include this definition.) The Madrid Gay, Lesbian Transsexual Collective has taken offense to the definition of Marica:
- f. urraca magpie
- [. . .]
- m. colloquial. effeminate, weak man.
Eulàlia Lledó believes that ajamonarse "to become like a ham, become pregnant" is inherently sexist. Galicians take offense to the definition of Gallego: "a Galician, dumb, stupid or deaf." Some of the groups propose outright removal of the definitions while others feel that the entries should just be flagged as possibly offensive (although many are already). This latter approach is very similar to the policy of many English dictionaries. For example, the American Heritage Dictionary includes the term nigger, but it calls it "offensive slang" and a "disparaging term."[2]
[edit] External links
- (Spanish) Nuevo Tesoro Lexicográfico de la lengua española, database with digital copies of all of the dictionaries edited and published by the RAE.
- (Spanish) Real Academia Española webpage
