Léon Fleuriot

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Léon Fleuriot (born April 5, 1923 in Morlaix , † March 15, 1987 in Paris ) was a French Celtologist and historian .

Life

Léon Fleuriot learned the Breton language at a young age and was supported in it by his father, who had joined the Breton nationalism movement Emsav. After studying archeology and history, he passed the Agrégation in 1950 , which qualified him for teaching at high schools .

He then spent a few years as a teacher at various schools, including the Prytanée National Militaire in La Flèche , before moving to the Center national de la recherche scientifique in 1958 and studying Celtic languages ​​there. Here he began with a systematic analysis of Breton glosses in a total of 1300 manuscripts from the 9th and 10th centuries in order to be able to reconstruct the Breton language from the time as much as possible. In 1964 he received his doctorate from the Sorbonne with his work Dictionnaire des glos en vieux-breton and Le vieux-breton Eléments d'une grammaire .

In 1966 he received the chair for Celtology at what is now the University of Rennes 2 . He extended his research to the other Celtic languages ​​and the relationships between the Celtic countries and the rest of Europe in the early Middle Ages. In doing so, he also acquired knowledge of other Celtic languages ​​and, for example, was one of the very few academics who spoke Cornish fluently.

Works (selection)

The following entries were taken from Gwennolé Le Menn's bibliography:

  • Dictionnarie des glos en vieux breton . Klincksieck Collection Linguistique 62 , Paris 1964. This dictionary was re-edited in 1985 as a two-volume work with the title A dictionary of old breton and provided with an English translation by Claude Evans, ISBN 0-9692225-0-5 .
  • Le vieux breton. Elements d'une grammaire . Klincksieck Collection linguistique publiée par la Société de Linguistique de Paris 63 , Paris 1964.
  • Les Origines de la Bretagne . Payot, Paris, 1980, ISBN 2-228-12711-6 . (This was intended to be the first volume in a series that could not be continued because of the violent death.)
  • Une Bretagne à trois voix (breton, latin, français) . From: Histoire littéraire et culturelle de la Bretagne , Paris, 1987, ISBN 2-85203-845-5 .
  • Brittany and the Bretons in the relations between the Celtic countries and continental Europe from the 4th to the 10th centuries . From the volume Virgil von Salzburg , edited by Heinz Dopsch and Roswitha Juffinger , pages 52-58, Salzburg, 1985.

literature

  • Gwennolé Le Menn (Ed.): Bretagne et pays celtiques: langues, histoire, civilization , Mélanges offerts a la mémoire de Léon Fleuriot . Rennes, 1992, ISBN 2-86847-062-9 . (In addition to a biography and an appreciation of Fleuriot's work, this volume also contains numerous contributions from his specialist areas, including several articles in Breton and Cornish.)

Remarks

  1. ↑ See the foreword to the memorial volume edited by Gwennolé Le Menn, page 9.
  2. ↑ Ken George: An delinyans pellder-termyn toul rag studhya an yeth kernewk . From the memorial book edited by Gwennolé Le Menn, pp. 63–74. On page 63 there is the following note: Léon Fleuriot was one of the few academics known to me who realized fully the value of Cornish, to the extent that he was able to converse in it.
  3. ↑ See the memory volume mentioned in the literature, pp. 19–50. The bibliography there contains a comprehensive list of all of Fleuriot's works, including the associated reviews.
personal data
SURNAME Fleuriot, Léon
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French celtologist and historian
DATE OF BIRTH April 5, 1923
PLACE OF BIRTH Morlaix
DATE OF DEATH March 15, 1987
Place of death Paris