Striden om de danske fremmedordbøger

Abstract

The dispute about the Danish dictionaries of foreign words and phrases concerns those dictionaries published in Denmark in the first half of the 19th century. Such dictionaries as a literary genre were new and the editors did not always agree as to the vocabulary that was to be included in them. There was more or less agreement as to the orthography of the words that were selected but there was no consensus as to their pronunciation. The question was whether the editor of a dictionary should reproduce the foreign pronunciation of the words or the Danish one and, if the Dan- ish pronunciation were selected, there were in many cases several pronunciations to choose between. Finally, the meaning of the words was also a topic that could lead to dispute. The dispute about the Danish dictionaries of foreign words and phrases ended with a victory to Ludvig Meyer's dictionary of foreign words and phrases. It made its first appearance in 1837 and became an institution that survived into the 20,h century, when other dictionaries made their appearance and entered into the competition. In the course of the 20lh century the concept of the dictionary of foreign words and phrases became more clearly defined and, first and foremost, standard specifications for the foreign words were established.