, 30 March 1900; died Madrid, 22 January 1981) was a Spanish librarian

Librarian

A librarian is an information professional trained in library and information science, which is the organization and management of information services or materials for those with information needs...

 and lexicographer. She is perhaps best-known for her Diccionario de uso del español, first published in 1966-1967, when she completed the work started in 1952.

Biography

María Juana Moliner Ruiz was the eldest daughter of Enrique Moliner, a doctor and son of a doctor, and Matilde Ruiz. At the age of two, her family moved from Zaragoza to Almazán

Almazán

Almazán is a municipality located in the province of Soria, Castile and León, Spain. According to the 2004 census , the municipality has a population of 5,755 inhabitants.- External links :*...

 in the border province

Provinces of Spain

Spain and its autonomous communities are divided into fifty provinces .In other languages of Spain:*Catalan/Valencian , sing. província.*Galician , sing. provincia.*Basque |Galicia]] — are not also the capitals of provinces...

 of Soria

Soria

Soria is a city in north-central Spain, the capital of the province of Soria in the autonomous community of Castile and León. , the municipality has a population of c. 39,500 inhabitants, nearly 40% of the population of the province...

. While a teenager her father left for Argentina and never came back, while Moliner, according to her son Fernando, lived with her mother, sister Matilde and brother Enrique in severe poverty. She pursued her Bachillerato at the Instituto General y Técnico Cardenal Cisneros, and obtained a degree in History in 1921 from the University of Zaragoza

University of Zaragoza

The University of Zaragoza or sometimes Saragossa University is a university located in Zaragoza, in the Aragon region of Spain...

.

She married Fernando Ramón Ferrando, a physics graduate, in 1925 and had four children. Years later the couple moved to Valencia.

In 1946, Moliner was put in charge of the library at the Superior Technical School of Industrial Engineers in Madrid, until her retirement in 1970. In the early 1950s, she started work on her Diccionario de uso del español, getting up at about five in the morning, working a little, watering her flowers, going to work, having a small siesta before returning to her dictionary work. Her method was to look up words, read newspapers and note words she had heard in the street.

Diccionario de uso del español

The Diccionario de uso del español is much more detailed than the Real Academia Española's dictionary, containing detailed definitions, synonyms, expressions and families of words. Unlike other dictionaries, Ll

Ll

Ll/ll is a digraph which occurs in several natural languages.-In English:In English, ll represents the same sound as single l:...

and Ch

CH

-Business:* Bemidji Airlines IATA code* Carolina Herrera, a fashion designer based in New York.-Entertainment and sports:* Channel * College Humor.com, a comedy website...

, often considered letters in their own right but now less frequently so, are grouped under L and C respectively, as in many recent dictionaries (and as in English). The book was immediately successful and is well regarded today, summed up in Miguel Delibes

Miguel Delibes

Miguel Delibes Setién was a Spanish novelist, journalist and newspaper editor. From 1975 until his death, he was a member of the Royal Spanish Academy, where he occupied chair "e". He studied commerce and law and began his career as a columnist and later journalist at the El Norte de Castilla...

's quip that "[i]t is a work that justifies a life" ("Es una obra que justifica una vida").

A María Moliner reading campaign is supported by the Ministry of Culture of the Government of Spain. Since 1998, the campaign for the promotion of reading in Spanish towns of less than 50,000 inhabitants has been in the format of a competition aimed at towns meeting these criteria, giving prizes to the best projects or activities for promoting reading among children and young people. It is held under the auspices of the Ministry of Culture and the collaboration of the Spanish Federation of Municipalities and Provinces and, since 1992, with the collaboration of the Coca-Cola

The Coca-Cola Company

The Coca-Cola Company is an American multinational beverage corporation and manufacturer, retailer and marketer of non-alcoholic beverage concentrates and syrups. The company is best known for its flagship product Coca-Cola, invented in 1886 by pharmacist John Stith Pemberton in Columbus, Georgia...

España Foundation. 350 libraries are awarded a prize of books made up of 200 children's and young adults' books. Since 2002 the three best projects receive cash prizes as well. The competition is held annually and all settlements with up to 50,000 inhabitants that have a staffed local library may submit their projects.

External links

• Official site (Spanish)