Michel Bréal

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Michel Bréal

Michel Jules Alfred Bréal (born March 26, 1832 in Landau in the Palatinate , † November 25, 1915 in Paris ) was a French philologist and is considered the founder of semantics in its current meaning. However, its general level of awareness is linked to the fact that Bréal was the source of the idea for the development of the modern marathon .

Life

Bréal was of Jewish descent. Because Landau in the Palatinate became Bavarian in 1816 , the place Landau an der Isar is incorrectly stated in various publications as Bréal's place of birth. Bréal lived in Landau in the Palatinate until he was nine and attended elementary school there. A plaque on the house where he was born commemorates the city's famous son.

Bréal completed his studies (1852–1855) at the " L'École Normale Supérieure " in Paris, where he discovered his interest in historically comparative linguistics . After his first teaching activities as a teacher in Strasbourg and Paris, he traveled to Berlin in 1857 to study Sanskrit with Albrecht Weber and comparative linguistics with Franz Bopp , whose work “ Comparative grammar of Sanskrit, Send, Armenian, Greek, Latin, Lithuanian, Old Slavic , Gothic and Germans ”he translated into French. Returned to Paris, he worked in the department of oriental scripts at the imperial library ( Bibliothèque Impériale ). His now widely valued philological knowledge, which he had published in his first literary works, enabled him to teach as a professor of comparative linguistics at the Collège de France (1866–1905) and at the “ École Pratique des Hautes Études ”. In 1866 he was involved in founding the “ Société de Linguistique de Paris ” and one of the editors of the “ Revue critique d'histoire et de littérature ”. From 1879 to 1888 he was given the task of general inspector for state education at universities ( Inspecteur général de l'Instruction publique pour l'Enseignement supérieur ). In 1890 Michel Bréal was appointed commander of the Legion of Honor ( Légion d'honneur ).

Bréal had a decisive influence on the interpretation of language. He rejected the content of a word as the sole determining characteristic for the meaning of an articulation . Rather, he saw the essence of the individual word embedded in a context , consisting of the various grammatical components of a language, which is expressed in the use of nouns , verbs , auxiliary verbs , adverbs , prepositions , conjunctions , pronouns, etc. Bréal published his views in his main work " Essai de Sémantique " in 1897 and thus introduced a new terminology into linguistics, semantics . In the period that followed, Bréal's work was deepened, so that his name is rarely mentioned in connection with philology these days.

Memorial plaque on the birthplace

In history, Michel Bréal is better known as the source of ideas for the development of the modern marathon . Well acquainted with Greek mythology , he also knew the legend about Pheidippides , the “runner of marathon” . When he 1894 the Olympic Congress attended in Paris, the idea of the legendary run of Pheidippides in the planned for 1896 grew in him Olympic Games in Athens as a competition to revive. He sent a letter to his friend, Baron Pierre de Coubertin , founder of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), of his idea. The winner should receive a trophy donated by Bréal . The Athens Olympic Marathon in 1896 became the first organized marathon, as it is held today at many events.

Important works

  • L'Étude des Origines de la Religion Zoroastrienne , 1862
  • Hercule et Cascus , 1863
  • Le Mythe d'Oedipe , 1864
  • Les Tables Eugubines , 1875
  • Mélanges de Mythologie et de Linguistique , 1882
  • Leçons de Mots , 1882, 1886
  • Dictionnaire Étymologique Latin , 1885
  • Grammaire Latine , 1890
  • Essai de Sémantique , 1897
  • Deux études sur Goethe: Un officier de l'ancienne France, Les personnages originaux de la "Fille naturelle" . Paris: Hachette 1898
  • Pour mieux connaître Homère . Paris: Hachette 1906

literature

  • Hans W. Giessen, Heinz-Helmut Lüger, Günther Volz (eds.): Michel Bréal - Border Crossing Signatures. Verlag Empirische Pädagogik, Landau 2007, ISBN 3-9373-3363-0
  • Hans W. Giessen & Heinz-Helmut Lüger: A frontier worker from the very beginning. Michel Bréal: From Marathon to Pynx in: Documents. Zs. For the German-French dialogue. Society for Supranational Cooperation, Bonn. Issue 4/2008 , pp. 59-62, ISSN  0012-5172

Web links

Wikisource: Michel Bréal  - Sources and full texts (French)

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Silver cup for the winner of the marathon of the Olympic Games in 1896 , accessed on December 24, 2015
personal data
SURNAME Bréal, Michel
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Bréal, Michel Jules Alfred (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French philologist and idea generator of the marathon
DATE OF BIRTH March 26, 1832
PLACE OF BIRTH Landau in der Pfalz , Kingdom of Bavaria, today Germany
DATE OF DEATH November 25, 1915
Place of death Paris , France