Natura e funzione del vocabolario dialettale bilingue nell'Ottocento

From the mid-18th century until the early 20th century, Italian dialect dictionaries often served practical and educational purposes, as they were mostly tools designed to aid translation from dialect to standard language. The production of essentially bilingual dialect dictionaries was abundant throughout the 19th century and reached its peak in the decades following Italian unification, when the task of spreading knowledge and the use of Italian language in a nation still predominantly dialect-speaking became particularly urgent. This contribution aims to trace the history of this special and important branch of Italian lexicography, highlighting its nature and functions and bringing out its connections with the linguistic-pedagogical debate of the 19th and 20th centuries.