María Moliner, the pinnacle of Spanish lexicography, takes up the tradition begun in the 15th century by Luisa Sigea de Velasco, Luisa de Medrano and Beatriz Galindo - all of them puellae doctae, upper-class women who wrote in Latin, mastered several languages, translated and were close to the crown and university. This tradition was continued in the 16th century by Francisca de Nebrija -daughter of Antonio Nebrija, the author of the first Spanish grammar book - or, in the 20th century, she shared academic interests with the philologists María Goyri and María Josefa Canellada, or with the lexicographer Flora Osete, co-author of El gran diccionario de la lengua española (1902-1936). Among the lexicographers after María Moliner, Paz Battaner, Elvira Gangutia and Dolores Corbella stand out, as well as philologists such as Maria Teresa Echenique, among many others.
María Juana Moliner Ruiz
(María Moliner)
Paniza (Zaragoza) 30-03-1900 ‖ Madrid 22-01-1981
Període d'activitat: Des de 1935 fins 1967
Classificació geogràfica: Europa > Espanya
Moviments socio-culturals
Grups per àmbit de dedicació
Tecnòlogues > Bibliotecàries
Tecnòlogues > Arxiveres
Humanístiques > Filòlogues / Lingüistes
Escriptores > en > espanyol
Context de creació femenina
Ressenya
María Moliner was a 20th century Spanish librarian, philologist and lexicographer. She studied at the Institución Libre de Enseñanza and at the University of Zaragoza, and she held important positions in the professional field of libraries and archives. For many years, she wrote the Diccionario de uso del español, which was published in two volumes in 1966 and 1967 and is one of the most important lexicographical repertoires of the Spanish language.
Justificacions
Biografia
María Moliner was born in Paniza (Zaragoza) on 30 March 1900 to Enrique Moliner Sanz, a rural doctor, and Matilde Ruiz Lanaja. She lived in a wealthy family environment (the paternal grandfather had also practised rural medicine and the maternal grandparents apparently owned land) in which the three children who survived the then fragile childhood years- Enrique, María and Matilde - went on to higher education.
In 1902, according to María Moliner herself, the whole family moved to Almazán (Soria) and, almost immediately, to Madrid. In the capital city, according to María, the little Moliner children studied at the Institución Libre de Enseñanza, where Don Américo Castro apparently aroused little María's interest in linguistic expression and grammar. María Moliner took her first baccalaureate exams as a free student at the Instituto General y Técnico Cardenal Cisneros de Madrid (between 1910 and 1915), moving on, in July 1915, to the Instituto General y Técnico de Zaragoza, where she was an official student since 1917 and where she completed her baccalaureate in 1918.
Between 1918 and 1921, María Moliner studied a degree in Philosophy and Arts at the University in Cesaraugusta (History section), which she completed with a distinction and an Extraordinary Prize.
In 1922, she entered, by public examination, into the Cuerpo Facultativo de Archiveros, Bibliotecarios y Arqueólogos (body of Archivists, Librarians and Archaeologists), and obtained her first destiny in the Simancas Archive.
After a brief stay in Simancas, María Moliner moved to the Archivo de la Delegación de Hacienda de Murcia (Archive of the Murcia Tax Office). It was in that city where she met her future husband, Fernando Ramón y Ferrando, Professor of Physics. The couple married in the Sagunto church, on 5 August 1925, and began a harmonious married life understanding each other well, that of two intellectuals committed to their vocation and to the society in which they lived, to which they tried to give the best of themselves.
Their two eldest sons (Enrique, a doctor who died in October 1999, and Fernando, an architect) were born in Murcia.
At the beginning of the 1930s, the family moved to Valencia (Mr. Fernando, to the Faculty of Sciences; Mrs. María, to the Archives of the Tax Office Delegation of that city).
The Valencian stage covers the period of María Moliner's fullest life: giving birth and raising her two young children (Carmen, a philologist, and Pedro, professor and director of the Escuela Técnica Superior de Ingenieros Industriales in Barcelona, who died in 1986); caring after the house (even with the appropriate assistance); her professional life; and, above all, her participation, with the faith and hope of a convinced institutionist, in the cultural enterprises born in the spirit of the Second Republic.
Firstly, it is worth mentioning the collaboration of Mrs. María in the Cossío School, clearly inspired by the Institución Libre de Enseñanza, a school of which Mr. José Navarro Alcácer (and his wife, Mrs. María Alvargonzález), who shared their objectives with other married friends, became the soul of. Mrs. María Moliner taught Literature and Grammar in that school, and she was also a member of its Board of Directors and of the Association of Friends for its support, as a secretary.
D.ª María also gave her enthusiastic collaboration to the Misiones Pedagógicas de la República (Pedagogical Missions of the Republic), the Valencian delegation of which was chaired by Mr. Navarro Alcácer with the fundamental help of Mrs. Angelina Carnicer. María Moliner was particularly concerned with the organisation of rural libraries. In fact, she wrote Instrucciones para el servicio de pequeñas bibliotecas (Instructions for the service of small libraries), published without an author's name in Valencia in 1937, which were highly appreciated, both in Spain and abroad, and whose introductory presentation - "To rural librarians" - is a moving piece and an undeniable testimony of the author's faith in culture as a vehicle for the regeneration of society.
https://cvc.cervantes.es/lengua/mmoliner/biografia.htm (02/02/2022)
Obres
Diccionario de uso del español (1966-1967).
Bibliografia
Bermejo Larrea, J. Ignacio. «María Moliner, el espíritu de una bibliotecaria comprometida». cvc.cervantes.es. https://cvc.cervantes.es/lengua/mmoliner/bermejo.html (02/02/2022)
De la Fuente, Inmaculada (2011). El exilio interior. La vida de María Moliner. Madrid: Turner.
Audiovisuals:
- Biblioteca Nacional de España. Homenaje a María Moliner http://www.bne.es/es/Actividades/2021/01-enero/acto-homenaje-a-maria-moliner.html?pagina=0 (02/02/2022)
- Instituto Cervantes. María Moliner en el centenario de su muerte https://cvc.cervantes.es/lengua/mmoliner/ (02/02/2022)
- Producción GAM. El Diccionario. https://www.gam.cl/teatro/el-diccionario/ (02/02/2022)
- Mujeres en la Historia. María Moliner: Los libros https://www.rtve.es/play/videos/personajes-en-el-archivo-de-rtve/mujeres-historia-maria-moliner-libros/987624/ (02/02/2022)
- María Moliner, la innovadora bibliotecaria oculta tras el diccionario https://www.rtve.es/noticias/20210122/maria-moliner/2068869.shtml (02/02/2022)
- Trailer del Documental María Moliner. Tendiendo Palabras https://tendiendopalabras.com/ (02/02/2022)
Enfocament Didàctic
It should be noted, with respect to the Diccionario de uso del español that, as opposed to the normative dictionaries (which include "what should be said"), María Moliner's dictionary includes "what is said", the real use that speakers make of the language. In addition, María Moliner's dictionary adds much more information about the relationship of a word with others (synonyms, words from the same semantic field, the prepositions used with each verb, collocations, examples of use...). It has a new structure in which thematic order takes precedence over alphabetical order. It can be, therefore, introduced at any time during secondary education to work on lexis in the subject of Spanish Language and Literature.
According to Gabriel García Márquez, it is "the most complete, most useful, most thorough and funniest dictionary in the Spanish language".