Annegret Bollée (4 March 1937 – 20 August 2021) was a German linguist and Professor Emeritus at the

University of Bamberg The University of Bamberg (german: Otto-Friedrich-Universität Bamberg) in Bamberg, Germany, specializes in the humanities, cultural studies, social sciences, economics, and applied computer science. Campus The university is mainly housed in ...

, specializing in Romance linguistics and creole languages.

Education and career

Annegret Bollée née Alsdorf was born in

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and List of cities in Germany by population, largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's List of cities in the European Union by population within ci ...

and grew up in

Münster Münster (; nds, Mönster) is an independent city (''Kreisfreie Stadt'') in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is in the northern part of the state and is considered to be the cultural centre of the Westphalia region. It is also a state di ...

and

Hamburg (male), (female) en, Hamburger(s), Hamburgian(s) , timezone1 = Central (CET) , utc_offset1 = +1 , timezone1_DST = Central (CEST) , utc_offset1_DST = +2 , postal ...

, where her father Ludwig Alsdorf was a professor of Indology. She studied English and Romance philology at the

University of Hamburg The University of Hamburg (german: link=no, Universität Hamburg, also referred to as UHH) is a public research university in Hamburg, Germany. It was founded on 28 March 1919 by combining the previous General Lecture System ('' Allgemeines Vo ...

, the

University of Aix-Marseille Aix-Marseille University (AMU; french: Aix-Marseille Université; formally incorporated as ''Université d'Aix-Marseille'') is a public research university located in the Provence region of southern France. It was founded in 1409 when Louis II of ...

and the

University of Bonn The Rhenish Friedrich Wilhelm University of Bonn (german: Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn) is a public research university located in Bonn, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It was founded in its present form as the ( en, Rhine ...

. She received her doctoral degree from Bonn in 1969, with a dissertation on Latin

deverbal noun Deverbal nouns are nouns that are derived from verbs or verb phrases. The formation of deverbal nouns is a type of nominalization (noun formation). Examples of deverbal nouns in English include ''organization'' (derived from the verb ''organize''), ...

s and their Romance counterparts. She became an assistant professor first in Bonn and then at the

University of Cologne The University of Cologne (german: Universität zu Köln) is a university in Cologne, Germany. It was established in the year 1388 and is one of the most prestigious and research intensive universities in Germany. It was the sixth university to ...

(in a department headed by Hans Dieter Bork), and started working on

Seychelles Creole Seychellois Creole (), also known as kreol, is the French-based creole language spoken by the Seychelles Creole people of the Seychelles. It shares national language status with English and French (in contrast to Mauritian and Réunion Creole ...

, a language with mostly French-derived vocabulary and a restructured grammatical system. She completed her habilitation degree in 1976. Bollée became full professor of Romance linguistics at the

in 1978, from which she retired in 2002. She was married to the indologist Willem Bollée.

Scientific contributions

Bollée is best known for her work on the history of the French-based creole languages of the Indian Ocean and of the Caribbean. She contributed the first grammatical description of

(Bollée 1977a) and contributed to the first dictionary of the language (d’Offay & Lionnet 1982). She also helped collect and edit folk stories and oral texts from the Seychelles (Bollée & Accouche 1976; Bollée & Essack 1994), and was instrumental in developing a standard orthography for writing Seychelles Creole (Bollée & d’Offay 1978). She also worked on the related

Réunion Creole Réunion Creole, or Reunionese Creole ( rcf, kréol rénioné; french: créole réunionnais), is a French-based creole language spoken on Réunion. It is derived mainly from French and includes terms from Malagasy, Hindi, Portuguese, Gujarat ...

language (Bollee 2013), as well as its historical documentation (Bollée 2008). Bollée has also developed a theory of creole language development that does not involve an intermediate pidgin stage (Bollée 1977b), and has worked extensively on the history of the creole languages of the Indian Ocean and the Atlantic Ocean. She edited a four-volume etymological dictionary of the French-based creoles of the Indian Ocean (1993-2007), and subsequently another four-volume etymological dictionary of the French-based creoles of the Caribbean region (2017-2018). In 2021, she received the Lifetime Achievement Award of the Society for Pidgin and Creole Linguistics.

Selected works

*Bollée, Annegret. 1977a. ''Le créole français des Seychelles: Esquisse d’une grammaire, textes, vocabulaire.'' Tübingen: Niemeyer. (https://doi.org/10.1515/9783111328874) *Bollée, Annegret. 1977b. ''Zur Entstehung der französischen Kreolen-Dialekte im Indischen Ozean: Kreolisierung ohne Pidginisierung.'' Genève: Droz. *Bollée, Annegret (ed.). 1993–2007. ''Dictionnaire étymologique des créoles français de l’Océan Indien (4 volumes).'' Hamburg: Buske. *Bollée, Annegret. 2008. ''Deux textes religieux de Bourbon du 18e siècle et l’histoire du creole.'' London: Battlebridge Publications. *Bollée, Annegret. 2013. ''Reunion Creole''. In: Michaelis, Susanne Maria & Maurer, Philippe & Haspelmath, Martin & Huber, Magnus (eds.) ''The survey of pidgin and creole languages, Volume 2: Portuguese-based, Spanish-based, and French-based Languages''. Oxford: Oxford University Press (https://apics-online.info/surveys/54). *Bollée, Annegret (ed.). 2017–2018. ''Dictionnaire étymologique des créoles français d’Amérique (4 volumes).'' Hamburg: Buske. *Bollée, Annegret & Accouche, Samuel. 1976. ''Ti anan en foi en Soungoula: Creole stories from the Seychelles.'' Cologne: University of Cologne, Romance Studies. *Bollée, Annegret & d’Offay, Danielle. 1978. ''Apprenons la nouvelle orthographe: Proposition d’une orthographe rationnelle pour le créole des Seychelles avec six contes créoles seyechellois.'' Cologne: Chez les auteurs. *Bollée, Annegret & Rosalie, Marcel (eds). 1994. ''Parol ek memwar: Récits de vie des Seychelles.'' Hamburg: Buske. *Bollée, Annegret & Neumann-Holzschuh, Ingrid. 2017. ''Spanische Sprachgeschichte.'' Stuttgart: Klett. *Bollée, Annegret & Reutner, Ursula. 2007. ''Beiträge zur Kreolistik: Als Festgabe für Annegret Bollée zum 70. Geburtstag.'' Hamburg: Buske. (https://www.academia.edu/43848916/Im_Gespr%C3%A4ch_mit_Annegret_Boll%C3%A9e) *d’Offay, Danielle & Lionnet, Guy (eds.). 1982. ''Diksyonner kreol-franse / Dictionnaire créole seychellois-français'' (Kreolische Bibliothek 3). Hamburg: Buske.

Notes

External links

Page at University of BambergPage at journal "Creolica"
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bollee, Annegret 1937 births 2021 deaths People from Berlin Linguists of pidgins and creoles Academic staff of the University of Bamberg Academic staff of the University of Cologne Linguists from Germany Women linguists University of Hamburg alumni