This conversation between Ilan Stavans and Marie-Hélène Drivaud with Peter Sokolowski is about how the emergence of dictionaries of European vernacular languages mirrors the increased literary and bureaucratic use of those languages, starting in Italy. Italian literary production, the founding of the Accademia della Crusca, and the comprehensive dictionary of classical Latin by the Italian monk Ambrogino Calepino provided examples for writers and scholars in France. The Latin, Latin-French, and French-Latin dictionaries by Robert Estienne became the foundation of French lexicography, and Jean Nicot’s Thresor de la langue françoyse continued this tradition in 1606, using both Latin and French in definitions. The Académie française, founded in 1634, was given a mandate to oversee the “purification” of grammar and vocabulary, but their dictionary was preceded by those of Pierre Richelet and Antoine Furetière. The traditions of the literary dictionary by Littré and the encyclopedic dictionary of Larousse began in the mid nineteenth century. A modern descriptive approach followed in the 1960s with Le Petit Robert and continues with digital and online editions.