It took one hundred and forty years to finalize it: the official dictionary of the Swedish language will soon be published. The last volume was sent to the printers last week, its publisher announced on Wednesday.
Designed by the Swedish Academy which awards the prestigious Nobel Prize for Literature, the Dictionary of the Swedish Academy (SAOB) has 33,111 pages spread over 39 volumes. This long-term work began in 1883. “Over the years, 137 people have been employed full time to work on this,” explains to l’AFP Christian Mattson, who leads the team responsible for writing the dictionary.
A work printed in only 200 copies
With the finalization of the dictionary, an important step has been taken, but the team still has work to do. The volumes listing words beginning with A through R are now so old that they need to be revised. The word “allergy”, for example, entered the Swedish language in the 1920s, but it does not appear in the volume of the letter “A”, since this was published in 1893.
Other terms like “Barbie doll,” “app” and “computer” are among 10,000 new idioms that will be added to the dictionary over the next seven years. The SAOB has been a reference work on the Swedish language since 1521. It is accessible online and has only 200 copies printed, mainly used by researchers and linguists.
The Swedish Academy also publishes a dictionary of everyday language. Founded in 1786 by King Gustav III on the model of the French Academy, its aim is to promote Swedish language and literature and to work for the “purity, vigor and majesty” of this language.
2023-10-26 11:53:51
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