Birds of a Feather?: Ornamental Illustrations in the Pequeño Larousse and Petit Larousse Dictionaries

Birds of a Feather?: Ornamental Illustrations in the Pequeño Larousse and Petit Larousse Dictionaries Thora van Male and Rosa Martinez Rodriguez Tl t ^he object of this paper is to compare the ornamental illustrations of two dictionaries: the Petit Larousse Illustré ana the Pequeño Larousse Ilustrado. For the purposes of this study, the 1940 editions will be compared, though new — and extremely different — sets of ornamentation subsequently appeared in both. The Pequeño is one of the few non-French dictionaries for adults to be embellished with ornamental illustrations based on the principle of the abecedarium (A is for ..., B is for ...) . Though the Pequeño is French in that it is the work of a French publishing house, it is a monolingual dictionary meant for Hispanophones. What sort of differences were to be expected in the ornamental illustrations outside of the elementary "A is for aigle 'eagle' being replaced by "A is for águila 'eagle'?" Would the French illustrations affect the Spanish ones? Would it be a case of mere translation , with the various French items being moved around so as to fit in the illustration of their Spanish initial letter? Would specifically French items be replaced by specifically Spanish ones? How would the three "Spanish letters" of the alphabet (Ch, Ll, and N) be rendered? It was with such questions in mind that we undertook this study. Historical background of the two dictionaries The Petit Larousse Illustré was first published in 1905 (dated 1906) . Though prior to this time the Larousse firm had published numerous dictionaries (both single and multivolume) the Petit Larousse Dictionaries:Journal ofthe Dictionary Society ofNorth America 24 (2003) Thora van Male and Rosa Martinez Rodriguez was a dictionary apart, not only among Larousse publications, but on the general lexicographical scene in France. Pierre Larousse's own Nouveau Dictionnaire de la Langue Française (1856) and its immediate successors had been oriented towards use in schools,1 while the Petit Larousse was designed and marketed as a reference book for the general public. Sales took off immediately, and the Petit Larousse is still going strong. In the heyday of Larousse dictionaries in France, "Don 't say dictionary, say Larousse" was more than just a marketing slogan, albeit an extraordinarily efficient one. It would be fair to say that the democratization of dictionaries in France originated with the Petit Larousse} Six years after the first edition of the Petit Larousse Illustré, the Pequeño Larousse Ilustrado came off the Larousse presses in Paris; the title page indicates that the dictionary was published under the direction of Claude Auge and adapted to Spanish by Miguel de Toro y Gisbert . In the same year, Larousse and Heath issued a Franco-American edition of the dictionary, published in Paris and New York. How was it that the Larousse firm, highly specialized in French language dictionaries , should undertake a monolingual dictionary in another language ? It would seem that the Pequeño was the brainchild of one man, Miguel de Toro y Gisbert. This scholar, who in the first years of the twentieth century had started his career in the French world of letters as a translator, was what might be called a polymath. Judging from the long list of holdings under his name in the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, which go as far back as 1906, his interests included the theater (French, Spanish, Portuguese), novels, war, biography, commerce, industry , and, above all, language. He published dozens of grammar books, bilingual dictionaries (including such combinations as SpanishRussian ), monolingual dictionaries (both French and Spanish), and specialized dictionaries. De Toro was a faculty member at France's 'This orientation was patent, and took various forms. The title page indicates that the dictionary appeared on the book lists in the French départements and was supplied free of charge by the city of Paris to its schools; some printings included a special preface written by the Minister of Education. Clearly, Larousse's marketing department was extremely efficient. It should be remembered that Pierre Larousse's original career as a schoolteacher led to his life work in lexicography. 2According to Claude Jolly, in the early 1950s, 80% of French homes had a...