Guy Miège

Guy Miège (* before 1644 in Lausanne , † after 1718) was an English Romance philologist, Anglist and lexicographer of Swiss origin.

life and work

Miège was baptized on May 30, 1644 (which does not necessarily correspond to the year of birth), grew up in Lausanne and came to London in 1661. There he was in the diplomatic service for a while, traveling to France from 1665 to 1668, teaching French and English as a foreign language in London and publishing dictionaries, grammars and other learning materials.

In 1677 (at a time when there were no monolingual French dictionaries), Miège published A New Dictionary French and English (later also: Great French Dictionary ) based on the French-Latin dictionary (1664, 1671) by François-Antoine Pomey . Since the preceding French-English dictionary by Randle Cotgrave (first 1611, 4th edition 1672) mainly depicted the French language of the 16th century, which had become non- classical , Miège's dictionary, which turned entirely to the French classic , meant a kind of revolution, which too Sparked protests. For the vocabulary missing in his dictionary he therefore added a Cotgrave substitute in 1679, from whose content he distanced himself with the title Dictionary of barbarous French .

Works

Dictionaries

• A New dictionary French and English, with another English and French , London 1677
• A dictionary of barbarous French , or, A collection, by way of alphabet, of obsolete, provincial, mis-spelt, and made words in French taken out of Cotgrave's dictionary with some additions. Awork much desired, and now performed, for the satisfaction of such as read Old French, London 1679
• A Short Dictionary English and French, French and English , London 1684
• The Great French Dictionary , London 1688

Other works

• La relation de trois ambassades de Monseigneur le comte de Carlisle de la part du serenissime & tres-puissant prince Charles II. Roy de la Grande Bretagne, vers leurs serenissimes Majestés Alexey Michailovitz czar & grand duc de Moscovie, Charles roy de Suede, & Frederic III. roy de Dannemarc & de Norvege, commencées en l'an 1663 & finies sur la fin de l'an 1664, Amsterdam 1669, 1672; Rouen 1670
• A New French Grammar, or a New Method for Learning of the French Tongue , London 1678
• A New Cosmography, or Survey of the Whole World , London 1682
• L'État présent de l'Europe suivant les Gazettes et autres Avis , London 1682
• The Present State of Denmark , London 1683
• Nouvelle Méthode pour apprendre l'Anglais , London 1685, Menston 1970
• Nouvelle Nomenclature Française et Anglaise , London 1685
• The Grounds of the French Tongue , London 1687, Menston 1969
• The English Grammar , London 1688, 1691, Menston 1969
• A Complete History of the late Revolution , London 1691
• Miscellanea, or a Choice Collection of Wise and Ingenious Sayings , London 1694
  • Delight and Pastime , London 1697

literature

• Bertha Porter, “Miege, Guy”, in: Dictionary of National Biography 37, 1894, entry in Wikisource
• Vivienne Larminie, 'Miege, Guy (bap. 1644, d. In or after 1718)', in: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography ( http://www.oxforddnb.com/index/18/101018687/ )
• Franz Josef Hausmann, 309. La lexicographie bilingue anglais-français, français-anglais, in: Dictionaries. Dictionaries. Dictionnaires. An international handbook on lexicography. Third volume , ed. by Franz Josef Hausmann, Oskar Reichmann, Herbert Ernst Wiegand and Ladislav Zgusta, Berlin. New York 1991, pp. 2956-2960
• Aline Francœur, Portrait d'un dictionnaire révolutionnaire: le New Dictionary French and English de Guy Miège, in: Seventeenth-Century French Studies 30, 2008, pp. 154–169
• Aline Francœur, Fighting Cotgrave with Father Pomey: Guy Miège's Recourse to the Dictionaire Royal Augmenté (1671) in the Preparation of his New Dictionary French and English (1677), in: International Journal of Lexicography 23, 2010, pp. 137-155

Web links

• Literature by and about Guy Miège in the SUDOC catalog (Association of French University Libraries)
• http://catalogue.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/cb12763688h/PUBLIC (christening date)