Antoine Meillet

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Antoine Meillet

Paul Jules Antoine Meillet (born November 11, 1866 in Moulins , Allier department , † September 21, 1936 in Châteaumeillant , Cher department ) is one of the most important French linguists of the early 20th century. He was instrumental in the development of comparative Indo-European studies and linguistics.

Life

Meillet studied at the Sorbonne , where he was influenced by Michel Bréal , Ferdinand de Saussure and members of the Année Sociologique . In 1890 he took part in a research trip to the Caucasus , where he studied the structure of Armenian . Upon his return, he continued his studies with de Saussure. Despite his intensive occupation with languages, he only spoke his first French language .

His dissertation from 1897 dealt with the use of the genitive accusative in Old Slavonic . In 1902 he received the chair of Armenian at the École des langues orientales at the École pratique des hautes études , and in 1906 he became a professor at the Collège de France , where he taught the history and structure of the Indo-European languages . He became Secretary General of the Société de linguistique de Paris , where he succeeded Michel Bréal. In 1931 Meillet was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences . Since 1906 he was a corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Sciences and since 1908 of the Göttingen Academy of Sciences . He maintained a scientific exchange with Émile Durkheim .

Meillet was not interested in the question of the original home of the Indo-Europeans (French Indo- Europeans ) and made no attempt to reconstruct the original language , rather he viewed language as socially determined. In doing so, he followed de Saussure's view. However, he proceeded from the assumption of a "nation indo-européenne" which, according to his understanding, were belligerent ruling elites who spread their Indo-European language as a means of rule. He saw the First World War as a continuation of this development process, as he wrote in 1918 about the war that was just ending and the post-war order: “[une guerre qui] apparaît comme la suite des longues luttes qui ont abouti à imposer à une grande partie du monde la langue de la nation indo-européenne ”(Eng.“ a war that seems like a continuation of the long struggles that finally made it possible to impose the language of the Indo-European nation on large parts of the world ”).

During the First World War, Meillet was critical of the German language:

«L'allemand n'est pas une langue séduisante. La prononciation en est rude, martelée par un accent violent sur le commencement de chaque mot.La grammaire en est encombrée d'archaïsmes inutiles: les noms par exemple ont des formes casuelles multiples, différentes les unes des autres, qui n'ont même pas la mérite de se trouver dans tous les mots, et qui ne servent à rien puisque l'ordre des mots est fixe et suffit à indiquer le sens. L'adjectif a des formes inutilement compliqueés. Les phrases sont construites d'une manière raide, monotone. Le vocabulaire est tout particulier, tel que ni un Slave, ni un Romain, ni même un Anglais ou un Scandinave ne peut rapprendre aisément. L'aspect d'ensemble manque de finesse, de légèreté, de souplesse, d'élégance. »

“German is not an attractive language. The pronunciation is rough with a hammered emphasis on the beginning of each word. The grammar is overloaded with unnecessary archaisms: the nouns z. B. have forms for several cases that differ from the others, but which are not required in all the words, since the word order is fixed and is sufficient to indicate the meaning. The adjective forms are unnecessarily complicated. The sentences are structured in a stiff, monotonous manner. The vocabulary is very special, as neither a Slav, nor a novel, nor an English or Scandivinian, can easily recognize anything. The overall appearance lacks delicacy, lightness, flexibility, elegance. "

Meillet also disliked other languages: he came across Irish ( Gaelic ), Basque , Breton , Lithuanian , Estonian and other Finno-Ugric languages ​​of Russia, as well as Hungarian . These languages ​​are complicated and incapable of becoming cultural languages. He made derogatory comments on Hungary's literature ; because it has "no prestige". He advised the East and East Central Europeans to unite in one state and to adopt Old Slavonic as a common language, because for him the principle of “one nation, one language” applied. The languages ​​mentioned were not "civilization languages" for him.

Today, Meillet is remembered as the mentor of an entire generation of linguists and philologists who played a central role in French linguistics of the 20th century, such as Émile Benveniste , Marcel Cohen , Lucien Tesnière , Pierre Chantraine , Michel Lejeune , Jerzy Kurylowicz , Georges Dumézil , André Martinet and Joseph Vendryes .

Works (selection)

  • Esquisse d'une grammaire comparée de l'arménien classique (1903)
  • Introduction à l'étude comparative des langues indo-européennes , 1903 (1st edition), Hachette, Paris 1912, (3rd edition).
  • Les dialectes indo-européens (1908).
  • Aperçu d'une histoire de la langue grecque (1913)
  • Old Armenian Elementary Book , Heidelberg 1913
  • Caractères généraux des langues germaniques , 1917
  • Linguistique historique et linguistique générale 1921
  • Les origines indo-européennes des mètres grecs (1923)
  • Traité de grammaire comparée des langues classiques (1924) (together with Joseph Vendryés).
  • Editor with Marcel Cohen: Les langues du monde , Paris 1924
  • Esquisse d'une histoire de la langue latine Klincksieck, Paris 1977, ISBN 2-252-01871-2
  • La méthode comparative en linguistique historique , 1928.
  • Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue latine , 1932 (together with Alfred Ernout (1879–1973)), expanded edition by Jacques André (1910–1994), Klincksieck, Paris 2001, ISBN 2-252-03359-2
  • Meillet en Arménie, 1891, 1903 , Journaux et lettres publiés par Francis Gandon Lambert-Lucas, Limoges 2014, ISBN 978-2-35935-071-5

Web links

Commons : Antoine Meillet  - collection of images, videos and audio files
Wikisource: Antoine Meillet  - Sources and full texts (French)

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e Jean-Paul Demoule: Mais où sont passés les Indo-Européens? –Le mythe d'origine de l'Occident . In: Maurice Olender (ed.): Points Histoire / La librairie du XXIe siècle . 2nd Edition. No. 525 . Éditions du Seuil, Paris 2014, ISBN 978-2-7578-6591-0 , pp. 166-173 .
  2. ↑ Holger Krahnke: The members of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen 1751-2001 (= Treatises of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen, Philological-Historical Class. Volume 3, Vol. 246 = Treatises of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen, Mathematical-Physical Class. Episode 3, vol. 50). Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2001, ISBN 3-525-82516-1 , p. 164.
  3. ^ Michael D. Gordin: Scientific Babel . University of Chicago Press, 2015, ISBN 978-0-226-00029-9 , Chapter 6: The Linguistic Shadows of the Great War , pp. 163 ( archive.org ).
  4. ^ Jean Perrot : Antoine Meillet et les langues de l'Europe: l'affaire hongroise . In: Histoire Épistémologie Langage . tape 10 , no. 2 , 1988, p. 301-318 ( Persée ).
  5. ↑ Cet ouvrage, ainsi que l Aperçu d'une histoire de la langue grecque, critically assessed by Lucien Febvre , Antoine Meillet et l'histoire, La Grèce ancienne à travers l'histoire , Revue de synthèse historique, 1913, pp. 4-93 , rééditée dans Lucien Febvre, Vivre l'histoire , coll. Bouquins, Robert Laffont / Armand Colin, Paris 2009, pp. 136–145.
personal data
SURNAME Meillet, Antoine
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French linguist
DATE OF BIRTH November 11, 1866
PLACE OF BIRTH Moulins , Allier department
DATE OF DEATH September 21, 1936
Place of death Châteaumeillant , Cher department