Nodier’s Dictionnaire raisonné des onomatopées françaises was first printed in 1808, extended in 1828, but since this date, it has not been published. This book written by a wandering collector of words was nearly forgotten and only available in very few libraries. In publishing it again, we wish to make it accessible to a larger range of readers for their delight. With the charm and the subtlety of a tale, it presents us with dreams of language ; but its approach to the question of origin is, in many ways, truly modern. Only its scientism would confine it to bygone ideas. Nevertheless it really questions the reliability of the traditional opposition between language as nature and language as convention.