The most important treasury of Catalan words are, without a doubt, the nine volumes of the Etymological and Complementary Dictionary of the Catalan Language published between 1980 and 1991. Its author is Joan Coromines, and for that reason this dictionary is known as “the Coromines”.
Today, following the signing between the Institut d’Estudis Catalans and the Pere Coromines Foundation, this magnum opus has become digitalized, so that its pages can be consulted online from any electronic device and for free at the address DeCat.iec.cat.
The presentation to the public of this new digital tool was a fiesta major de la palabra, which was attended by Teresa Cabré, president of the IEC, and Carles Duarte, president of the Pere Coromines Foundation, who was accompanied by the members of the Philological Section Mila Segarra and Enric Ribes. For greater relevance, the event was held in the Pere i Joan Coromines room of the IEC, where the Philological Section usually meets.
Joan Coromines i Vigneaux (Barcelona, ??1905 – Pineda de Mar, 1997) is considered the most important novelist of the 20th century worldwide. His task of etymological research is crowned with the Etymological and Complementary Dictionary of the Catalan language which supposes the scientific fixation of the origins of a large group of words in the Catalan language.
The president of the IEC believes that “with the three dictionaries, the General Dictionary of the Catalan Language (DIEC), the Catalan-Valencian-Balearic by Alcover-Moll, and the Coromines, the Catalan language is not only the language of culture, but of advanced culture, a task that culminates with the digitization of all three”.
Parallel to DeCat, Coromines published the Onomasticon cataloniae, which contains the etymological information of the place names of the Catalan-speaking lands, and had already published the Etymological Critical Dictionary of the Castilian Language, with the help of José Antonio Pascual, as well as numerous works about Occitan. Today, the etymology of the Romance languages, not only Catalan, Castilian and Occitan, is based on the foundations that Coromines established in his works.
Mila Segarra, vice president of the Philological Section of the IEC, recalled the difficulties that Coromines had in being able to undertake this work, “because I won’t say it, but he had a character and that made him have enemies; “But who doesn’t have a character?” she asked, before stating that the digitization of Coromines’ work is also “an act of compensation.”
Enric Ribes, director of the Onomastic Office of the Philological Section, explained that, once all the infrastructure was established to digitize the Onomasticon cataloniae, it seemed to them that it could be used to also digitize the Coromines, and so it was done. “In addition, in each search the other dictionaries have been linked, so that the same word can be consulted immediately in the other vocabularies.”
Carles Duarte recalled the history and vicissitudes of the Fundació Pere Coromines building in Sant Pol de Mar, which had been a family residence and which the linguist wanted to be the headquarters of the foundation named after his father, whom he admired. The mayor of the town of Maresme has also attended the presentation of digitalization. “Coromines was a brave person,” Duarte explained, “who took personal risks to defend the country.”
“Our task is very important because it is not only academic, but is linked to the construction of a country,” Teresa Cabré concluded.
Catalan version, here
