For those active in the Esperanto movement, NPIV may have been the biggest news of the summer of 2002. For others, it would likely be just another acronym. Whatever it is, it likely deserves a certain amount of attention from the IAL movement in general.

“NPIV”, the Nova Plena Ilustrita Vortaro de Esperanto, is the latest, third, incarnation of the Plena Ilustrita Vortaro de Esperanto, what has been, since around 1970, generally taken as the canonical dictionary of Esperanto. It finally made it to the market in July, and I got my copy a couple of weeks ago. Herewith a short description — not a review; I haven’t read the book, and don’t intend to — it’s primarily for dipping into when you want to find out what a word means.

The original PIV appeared in 1970, edited by the late Gaston Waringhien. In the middle 1980s a new version appeared — essentially the old edition but with an additional supplement (put together by Waringhien and Roland Levreaud) included at the end. Around the time Waringhien passed away, at the beginning of the nineties, the publisher, SAT, decided to completely redo the dictionary, and tapped a somewhat reluctant Michel Duc Goninaz to step into Waringhien’s shoes.

Duc Goninaz, a sometime professor of Slavic languages who, although he is French, is perhaps less Francocentric than was Waringhien, has taken a somewhat different tack in his approach to Esperanto. A certain degree of Westernization of Esperanto that led to a degree of desystemization in the older version of the dictionary seems to have been rolled back; for instance (and perhaps most obviously) Duc Goninaz has done away with the principle (espoused by Kalocsay and the lexicographer Waringhien, though not, as he points out, by the poet Waringhien) of showing a woman’s name with a final -A, as opposed to a man’s name; -A, insists Duc Goninaz, is the adjective ending, not a feminizing morpheme (pp. 22-23). He does accept that the -A can be used in some cases (where the name is essentially an adjective) as the ending of a name, but no less for men than for women.

Some definitions have changed to become less tendentious. Piron (in La bona lingvo) complained, rightly in my opinion, about the following definition of sinkretismo in the original PIV: “a confusing and complex combination of ideas, theses or beliefs of divers origins into an apparently coherent whole”, with the less than edifying example of use: “spiritismo, bahaismo ktp estas ekzemploj de sinkretismo”. In the new PIV the definition has metamorphosed into “a combination of ideas, theses or beliefs of divers origins into a new doctrine”, with no example given. On the other hand, there has been some heated discussion about the second definition of the derived Islamismo, i.e. “political misuse of Islam”, which does seem to show a certain tendentiousness.

Speaking of examples, new sources have been added. In the original PIV, most examples were taken from writings in the early period of Esperanto, primarily Zamenhof and the Bible. This remains true, but a layer of more recent (mid-to-late-20th-century) examples have been added from several dozen additional sources, ranging from William Auld to the pseudonymous P. Mährtti. ⁽¹⁾

Some changes show evolution at work. In the old PIV, Waringhien applied strictly the traditional definition of komput/i, found in the old Plena Vortaro, which referred to the counting or measuring of a continuous flow or a flow of discrete objects; the word komputilo would apply not to the device sending this e-mail but to the electric meter on the outside of my house. For the former, Waringhien used the English-derived komputer/o, which then gave the verb komputeri for “to compute”. In NPIV, popular usage has won out; komput/i is what you do with a computer (though the old definition is also given, as “archaic”), komputilo is the computer itself, komputer/o has been banished completely, and the occasionally-used komputor/o remains but does nothing but point to komputilo, the preferred word.

The term ilustrita is also somewhat more applicable this time around. In the original (and 1980s) editions, the illustrations were confined to a series of 30 black-and-white plates at the end of the book. Currently, they remain in black and white, but are now located as individual illustrations on the appropriate pages — and there seem to be many more of them. For instance, on the very first page of the dictionary we see an abako (abacus; 2nd definition). Where appropriate, parts or stages of the word defined are also indicated; from the picture of an abacus, we learn that it operates by moving bidoj on stangetoj. Moving on, the second page shows us a picture of an abio along with a separate picture of its needles and cone; on the third page we find pictures of an abrikoto and of an absinto (the plant from which the drink/drug originates). Mentioning abio, by the way, I should add that, with the descriptions of the balzama abio and the blanka abio of the first edition, we now have the hispania abio and the skvama abio. Of great interest, but perhaps no real importance except to specialists, is the half-page illustration of 13 different kinds of brasiko on p. 170.

The number of tables also seems to have increased, though without going through the entire book that’s impossible to tell for sure, since (big lack!) a table of contents for the tables is missing. I did manage to run across a periodic table of the elements (under Mendelev/o, p. 728) ⁽²⁾ and two pages of tables of mathematical symbols (under simbol/o, pp. 1039-1040) that I am sure were not in the previous edition.

I naturally had to check out a few of the more vulgar terms. piĉo (vulgar term for the female sexual organ) has had a somewhat checkered lexicographical history. In the original Plena Vortaro it is given only the meaning of “pitch” in music, though the second meaning is aluded to by numbering that single definition (it is the only single-definition word in the book to have the definition so numbered). John Wells, in his two-way English/Esperanto Esperanto Dictionary, gives both definitions, but the vulgar one is “pudendum muliebre”, not of much use to the average English speaker. By contrast, in the original PIV only the vulgar definition is given; for the musical one, we are redirected to the word pitĉ/o, a fantasy of earlier and more prudish lexicographers. Finally, in NPIV, Duc Goninaz restores and displays both definitions of piĉ/o; he retains pitĉ/o, but apparently just for continuity; all it does is redirects you to the appropriate definition of the preferred piĉ/o (there are many words in the dictionary that redirect in this way). ⁽³⁾

Taking no chances, Duc Goninaz has changed the definition of fik/i from sekskuniĝi kun virino (which in the original PIV suffered a horrible typographical error which changed its meaning to “ménage a six”) to the simpler koit/i, which in turn carries a somewhat abbreviated and less sexually discriminatory version of the earlier definition (this time without the typo). He also adds three fairly common “derivations” which Waringhien somehow failed to include in the earlier definition. (Note: the word forfikul/o, which in this edition is accompanied by an illustration, is not related.)

And the common terms midz/i and frandz/i, both omitted from the earlier PIV, are now included. Note that both words are difficult to pronounce, because of the articulation of the tongue, appropriately enough …

The book has about the same number of pages as the earlier work, but is slightly wider and perhaps 15-20% taller. I’m not sure how many “kapvortoj” were found in the earlier edition — I’ve always assumed approximately 15 000 — but in this edition they number 16 780, for a total of 46 890 lexical units (info from p. 33). Of these “kapvortoj”, I would guess (without actually counting) that at least 10% and possibly as many as 30% are assimilated proper names rather than actual roots. A large part of the remainder are technical/specialist vocabulary.

The average Esperanto speaker who wishes to have a book of Esperanto words with Esperanto definitions can likely make do with Pilger’s Baza Esperanta Radikaro, one of the few “pocket books” I’ve seen in my life that one can genuinely fit into one’s pocket without causing irreparable damage to the seams (though I keep my copy on my handheld — supersigns and all, heh-heh!). However, I suspect that NPIV is going to be an absolute necessity for those who insist on being literarily active, or active in various specialist fields.

⁽¹⁾ At several places on the net the interested individual can find an essay by Anna Löwenstein critical of the original PIV, and particularly of Waringhien’s choice and manipulation of many of the example expressions that filled the earlier editions. Hopefully, the new version is more accurate in this regard.

⁽³⁾ Both meanings of the word are shown in “Henri Baupierre“‘s little story, in his highly-regarded but difficult-to-come-by book Specimene: Parodioj kaj Pastiĉoj, about the soprano-singing troubadour who attempted to win the hand of the princess on her balcony, but failed “ĉar li strebis je tro alta piĉo”.

Kelkaj menciis elasitajn erojn kaj aliaj mankoj en NPIV. Dum 2006 mi legis ke nun aperis revizitan NPIVn. G’is nun mi ne mendis sed esperas trovi du aliajn por ricevi rabaton donita de UEA kiam oni mendas tri ekzemoplerojn samtempe sendita al la sama adreso.