This paper traces the historical development of lexicography in Gabon. Gabon, like most African countries, is multilingual. The recent inventories of languages spoken in Gabon are those established by Jacquot (1978) and Kwenzi-Mikala (1998). According to Kwenzi-Mikala (1997), there are 62 speech forms divided into 10 language groups or language-units in Gabon. These speech forms co-exist with French, the official language. In fact, in article 2 of paragraph 8 of the revised Constitution of 1994 the following can be read: "The Gabonese Republic adopts French as the official language. Furthermore, she endeavours to protect and promote the national languages."This constitutional arrangement naturally makes French the language used in education, administration and the media.The survey of lexicography in Gabon that is presented here includes the linguistic situation in and the language policy of Gabon, the lexicographic survey itself, as well as the lexicographic needs of the different speech forms (including languages and dialects). Initially, the pioneers of Gabonese lexicography were missionaries or colonial administrators. Very little was done in this field by the Gabonese themselves. Although credit is to be given to these early works, there are a number of shortcomings regarding the linguistic as well as the metalexicographic contents of dictionaries and lexicons produced during this period. In fact, the main weak point of those studies was the lack of tones in the written transcription of oral productions and orthographic problems.Furthermore, in those contributions, the theory of lexicography is largely unknown and lexicographic works are hardly ever based on authentic data corpora of the languages being described. Keywords: SPEECH FORMS, LANGUAGE GROUP(S),
Abstract:This article is a survey study of lexicographic activities with regards to the French language as it is spoken in Gabon, a French-speaking country in central Africa. The French language as it is spoken in Gabon does not only refer to Gabonisms (mostly items derived from native Gabonese languages), but also to standard French, official French (acrolectal level), common French (mesolectal level) and popular French (basilectal level). All four levels are present in French as it is used in Gabon. In other words, the Gabonese have named the realities of their own environment with lexical items coined on their own soil or borrowed from other languages. This has strengthened and enriched French as it is spoken in Gabon. The modern era of Gabonese lexicography has witnessed the production of various dictionaries focusing on this African variety of French. Before 1999, in Gabon and due to the status of French as the sole official language of the country, French dictionaries used in Gabon were mostly French products. Monolingual French dictionaries produced in Gabon by Gabonese scholars include a very limited number of authors, namely: Dodo Bounguendza (2008), Ditougou (2009) andMoussounda Ibouanga (2011).Despite the fact that these dictionaries were compiled for use by Gabonese, they are differential as they tend to include references of the Parisian standard French. Indeed, a differential dictionary is a dictionary focusing on differences between two language varieties or two similar languages, and current Gabonese French dictionaries are by all means differential. It is this situation, and the ways it can be corrected that this article will focus on. The idea is to produce a complete dictionary of variant B, namely Gabonese French. Such a dictionary will reflect certain emancipation from the French language spoken in France (i.e. Parisian standard French), herein referred to as variant A. Keywords: GABONESE FRENCH, DIFFERENTIAL DICTIONARIES, EMANCIPATION, STANDARD FRENCH, GABONRésumé: Les dictionnaires du français du Gabon: État des lieux et perspectives. Cet article fait le point sur les activités lexicographiques en ce qui concerne la langue française telle qu'elle est parlée au Gabon, un pays francophone de l'Afrique centrale. La langue française telle qu'elle est parlée au Gabon ne fait pas seulement référence aux gabonismes (majoritairement des termes dérivés des langues gabonaises locales), mais également au français standard, au français official (niveau acrolectal), au français commun (niveau mésolectal) et au français populaire (niveau basilectal). Tous les quatre niveaux sont présents dans le français qu'il est utilisé au *
Abstract:A distinction is often drawn between single articles and synopsis articles. A single article is the so-called default article. It does not deviate from the traditional microstructural approach of the dictionary because it presents the minimum data for each lemma sign treated, while a synopsis article gives additional data for each treated lemma. The classical conception of the synopsis article originates with Bergenholtz, Tarp and Wiegand (1999). In their view, synopsis articles which were devised for language for special purposes (LSP) dictionaries have to make provision for the treatment of lemma signs functioning as superordinate terms (general lemmata or topics) as well as their hyponyms. The aim of this article is to present a new lexicographic approach to the study of synopsis articles against the background of a planned trilingual dictionary. It will be shown that synopsis articles have a more general use than its restricted application in LSP dictionaries. In fact, the focus will not be on the treatment of technical or scientific vocabulary but rather on cultural terms. This article also raises among other things, questions about the purpose of the planned dictionary, its target users, different types of microstructures as well as different data categories to be included in synopsis articles. Keywords
A considerable fraction of the vocabulary of Yilumbu is made up of words, which can be regarded as loanwords. This article focuses on morphologic, semantic and lexicographic aspects of borrowing in Yilumbu. As far as morphology is concerned, it is argued that despite the arrival of new words the Yilumbu noun class prefix has not undergone significant changes. Semantic changes are presented, followed by a lexicographic analysis.
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