To the International Day of the Native language: The exhibition "Never at loss: the exhibition of dictionaries and about dictionaries" in St. Petersburg

February 21, 2017 in the hall Korf of the National Library of Russia (St. Petersburg) is opening the exhibition "Never at loss: the exhibition of dictionaries and about dictionaries" timed to the International Day of the Native Language.

The exhibition at the National Library of Russia will introduce a variety of dictionaries stored in the collections of the NLR. In addition to such well-known types of dictionaries, like spelling, sensible, phraseological, pronouncing, etymological dictionaries are presented dictionaries of speech etiquette, demonstration (containing rare words, metaphors), dictionaries of winged words, obsolete vocabulary, dictionaries of copyright and others.

Among the exhibits there are one of the main works of Mikhail Lomonosov, a founder of the transformation of the Russian language and literature "Russian Grammar" (1755). The first dictionary of the Russian language "Dictionary of the Russian Academy" will be presented, containing 43,357 words. Work on the dictionary began in 1783 and took 11 years.

The exhibition also tells about the work of lexicographers - scientists involved in compiling the dictionary, without their achievements it cannot do any one of the sciences.

Visitors of the exhibition will see one of the largest dictionaries of the Russian language "Explanatory Dictionary of the Russian language", compiled by Vladimir Dal in the middle of the XIX century, containing about 200 000 words and 30 000 proverbs, sayings and riddles.

In recent decades it was increased a volume of publications on different branches of knowledge, including reference books for quick, objective information of diverse nature, so a separate section is devoted to all kinds of non-linguistic encyclopedic dictionaries and other reference publications.

Reading the dictionary improves speech culture, introduces the rules of the Russian language, enriching vocabulary, warns against misuse of words and contributes to the development of logical thinking.

The exhibition at the National Library of Russia will be a guide to the world of dictionaries, it will remind of the richness of the Russian language, and will be interesting and useful not only for professionals.

The exhibition will run till March 20.