Michel Lejeune (Linguist)

Michel Lejeune (born January 30, 1907 in Paris , † January 27, 2000 ibid) was a French Graecist and linguist ( phonologist ).

Life

Lejeune began studying at the École normal supérieure in 1926 , from which he graduated in 1929 with the agrégation de grammaire . He received his doctorate in 1940. His first dissertation dealt with Greek adverbs on -then , his second Observations sur la langue des actes d'affranchissement delphiques. He was a student of the comparative linguist Antoine Meillet and Joseph Vendryes and specialized in the historical phonetics of ancient Greek .

He taught first as maître de conférences classical philology in Poitiers (1933–1937), then in Bordeaux (as a professor since 1941) and in 1947 switched to the École pratique des hautes études as directeur d'études in comparative grammar of Indo-European languages , 1951 as Professor of Linguistics at the Sorbonne (until 1955).

In 1963 he was admitted to the Académie des inscriptions et belles-lettres and in 1976 as a corresponding member of the British Academy , in 1992 he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences . From 1970 he was secretary of the Société de Linguistique de Paris .

He was the grandson of Xavier-Edouard Lejeune (1845-1918), who left his memoir with the title Calicot (Arthaud Montalba, 1984), and the brother of Arlette Claire Lejeune (1910-2006) and the draftsman Jean Effel .

Research priorities

His works Phonétique historique de la langue grecque and his Précis d'accentuation grecque experienced numerous reprints. After 1945 he dealt with the languages ​​of ancient Italy, Latin and Etruscan , but also Oscar , Venetian , Messapic , Elymic and Lepontic .

With the deciphering of the Linear B script by Michael Ventris and John Chadwick , he turned his attention to Mycenaean Greek .

In 1954 he devoted one of his seminars to Mycenaean documents, the language, but also the structure of the archives of the Mycenaean societies. In 1956 he organized the first Mykenonological Colloquium.

For almost forty years, until 1997, he published his research results in his Mémoires de philologie mycénienne . His work on Mycenaean Greek led to a revision of his Traité de phonétique grecque , which was published under the title Phonétique historique du mycénien et du grec ancien .

At the end of his life he studied the Gaulish language and published the Recueil des inscriptions gauloises.

Fonts (selection)

• Les adverbes grecs en -then. Bordeaux, 1939.
• Observations on the language of the actes d'affranchissement delphiques. Paris, 1940.
• Précis d'accentuation grecque. Paris, 1945.
• Traité de phonétique grecque. Paris, 1947.
• La posición del latin en el dominio indoeuropeo. Buenos Aires, 1949.
• Collection Froehner: inscriptions italiques. Paris, 1953.
• Celtiberica. Salamanca, 1956.
• Mémoires de philologie mycénienne. 1re série, Paris 1955–1957; 2e série, Roma 1971; 3e série, Roma 1973.
• Index inverse de grec mycénien. Paris, 1964.
• La langue élyme d'après les graffites de Ségeste. Paris, 1969.
• Lepontica. Paris, 1971.
• Phonétique historique du mycénien et du grec ancien. Paris, 1972.
• Manuel de la langue vénète. Heidelberg 1974.
• L'anthroponymie osque. Paris, 1976.

literature

• Étrennes de septantaine. Travaux de linguistique et de grammaire comparée offerts à Michel Lejeune par un groupe de ses élèves. Klincksieck, Paris 1978 (Études et commentaires, no.91)
• École pratique des hautes études. Section des sciences historiques et philologiques. Livret-Annuaire 15, 1999-2000 (2001), p. 34, (online) . - (necrology)

Web links

• Literature by and about Michel Lejeune in the SUDOC catalog (Association of French University Libraries)

Individual evidence

1. ^ Deceased Fellows. British Academy, accessed June 28, 2020 .