IEC Dictionary of the Catalan Language

The Dictionary of the Catalan language of the Institute of Catalan Studies (DIEC) is the dictionary of Catalan of the Institute of Catalan Studies (IEC) and, therefore, the standard reference dictionary for the Catalan language, together with the dictionary of standard Valencian produced by the AVL.

It is a monolingual dictionary of definitions. As a normative work it "establishes the shape and the meaning of the words generally recognised as belonging to the Catalan language".

History

The idea of creating the dictionary arose from the determination of the Philological Section of the Institute to normalise and unify the Catalan language. The project began under the presidency of Pompeu Fabra i Poch with the creation of the "Spelling Rules", the "Spelling Dictionary" and the "Grammar".

In 1932, after four years' preparation, the Philological Section published the first edition of the "General Dictionary of the Catalan language" (DGLC), the DIEC's predecessor, and it managed to unify the spelling system, cleanse the lexicon, fix the grammar and introduce neologisms.

The DGLC began to be considered the official dictionary of the Catalan language from 1954 onwards, when the second edition was published.

During the decade of 1980s Catalan authors and writers began to ask the IEC to revise the dictionary, because they considered that the language had evolved quite a lot since the time of Fabra.

Towards the end of 1992 from within the IEC there arose a determination to publish a new standard dictionary. The project began immediately, with the economic support of the regional government, the Generalitat of Catalonia. The first edition of the new dictionary, the Dictionary of the Institute of Catalan Studies, was finished in December 1994 and published in September 1995.