Geneviève Massignon (

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

, 27 April 1921 – 6 June 1966) was a French

linguist Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. It is called a scientific study because it entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise analysis of all aspects of language, particularly its nature and structure. Linguis ...

ethnologist Ethnology (from the grc-gre, ἔθνος, meaning 'nation') is an academic field that compares and analyzes the characteristics of different peoples and the relationships between them (compare cultural, social, or sociocultural anthropology) ...

musicologist Musicology (from Greek μουσική ''mousikē'' 'music' and -λογια ''-logia'', 'domain of study') is the scholarly analysis and research-based study of music. Musicology departments traditionally belong to the humanities, although some mu ...

and

historian A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the stu ...

who studied

Acadia Acadia (french: link=no, Acadie) was a colony of New France in northeastern North America which included parts of what are now the Maritime provinces, the Gaspé Peninsula and Maine to the Kennebec River. During much of the 17th and early ...

n speech, as well as dialects and linguistic communities in

Brittany Brittany (; french: link=no, Bretagne ; br, Breizh, or ; Gallo language, Gallo: ''Bertaèyn'' ) is a peninsula, Historical region, historical country and cultural area in the west of modern France, covering the western part of what was known ...

, in the west of

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

and in

Corsica Corsica ( , Upper , Southern ; it, Corsica; ; french: Corse ; lij, Còrsega; sc, Còssiga) is an island in the Mediterranean Sea and one of the 18 regions of France. It is the fourth-largest island in the Mediterranean and lies southeast of ...

. She published several important works based on this research.

Biography

Massignon received her License-ès-lettres degree in 1941. In 1945 (after the Second World War), she took over from Jacques Pignon (who died prematurely) the task of preparing, for the

CNRS The French National Centre for Scientific Research (french: link=no, Centre national de la recherche scientifique, CNRS) is the French state research organisation and is the largest fundamental science agency in Europe. In 2016, it employed 31,637 ...

, a

linguistic atlas A linguistic map is a thematic map showing the geographic distribution of the speakers of a language, or isoglosses of a dialect continuum of the same language, or language family. A collection of such maps is a linguistic atlas. The earliest s ...

of the center-west of France, focussing on the departments of

Vendée Vendée (; br, Vande) is a department in the Pays de la Loire region in Western France, on the Atlantic coast. In 2019, it had a population of 685,442.

Deux-Sèvres Deux-Sèvres () is a French department. ''Deux-Sèvres'' literally means "two Sèvres": the Sèvre Nantaise and the Sèvre Niortaise are two rivers which have their sources in the department. It had a population of 374,878 in 2019.

Vienne Vienne (; Poitevin-Saintongeais: ''Viéne'') is a landlocked department in the French region of Nouvelle-Aquitaine. It takes its name from the river Vienne. It had a population of 438,435 in 2019.Charente Charente (; Saintongese: ''Chérente''; oc, Charanta ) is a department in the administrative region of Nouvelle-Aquitaine, south western France. It is named after the river Charente, the most important and longest river in the department, an ...

and

Charente-Maritime Charente-Maritime () is a department in the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region on the southwestern coast of France. Named after the river Charente, its prefecture is La Rochelle. As of 2019, it had a population of 651,358 with an area of 6,864 square kil ...

: the

Poitevin-Saintongeais Poitevin-Saintongeais (french: poitevin-saintongeais, link=no, ; autonym: ''poetevin-séntunjhaes''; also called ''Parlanjhe'', ''Aguiain'' or even ''Aguiainais'' in French) is a langue d'oïl language spoken in the regions of the Pays de la Loi ...

dialect area. At the time of her death, she had practically finished the surveys, which would be published by Brigitte Horiot under the title, ''Linguistic and Ethnographic Atlas: Poitou, Aunis, Saintonge, Angoumois.'' This atlas formed the basis of a dialectometric analysis of the dialect area performed by Liliane Jagueneau. Her interest in researching the Acadian French community developed in response to the research of her older brother Yves Massignon, a human geographer who lived in Madawaska,

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

, where he studied the local

French-Canadian French Canadians (referred to as Canadiens mainly before the twentieth century; french: Canadiens français, ; feminine form: , ), or Franco-Canadians (french: Franco-Canadiens), refers to either an ethnic group who trace their ancestry to Fr ...

community before his death at the age of 20. His research was published in a work entitled, In ''Canada, the Upper Valley of Saint-Jean (Madawaska) and the future of Franco-American.'' In 1946, Massignon obtained a scholarship from the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs' Cultural Relations department which enabled her to travel to the Canadian

maritime provinces The Maritimes, also called the Maritime provinces, is a region of Eastern Canada consisting of three provinces: New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island. The Maritimes had a population of 1,899,324 in 2021, which makes up 5.1% of Ca ...

and to the

Mississippi delta The Mississippi Delta, also known as the Yazoo–Mississippi Delta, or simply the Delta, is the distinctive northwest section of the U.S. state of Mississippi (and portions of Arkansas and Louisiana) that lies between the Mississippi and Yazoo ...

region to collect traditional Acadian folklore and stories and survey the local dialects. This investigation formed the basis for her PhD thesis, ''Les parlers français d'Acadie'', which she defended in 1962. In 1966, she was expected to attend the Franco-Acadian festivities at Belle-Île-en-Mer to commemorate the bicentennial of the Acadian settlements on the island. She died suddenly of a heart attack just before the event took place. Besides her linguistic work, Massignon collected traditional stories and music from communities in Acadia, Brittany, Corsica and the west of France. A bibliography of her work has been published by the BNF. Her father was the French Islamologist

Louis Massignon Louis Massignon (25 July 1883 – 31 October 1962) was a Catholic scholar of Islam and a pioneer of Catholic-Muslim mutual understanding. He was an influential figure in the twentieth century with regard to the Catholic church's relationship w ...

. She had two brothers, Yves and Daniel Massignon.

Geneviève Massignon Collection

Her papers were donated by the Geneviève Massignon family to the BNF in 1985.

Honors

* Medal of the Academy of Letters of Quebec (1963); she is the first foreigner to receive the medal.

Selected works

* Geneviève Massignon. ''Les parlers français d'Acadie : enquête linguistique'' / Paris : C. Klincksieck,

962 Year 962 ( CMLXII) was a common year starting on Wednesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. Events By place Byzantine Empire * December – Arab–Byzantine wars – Sack of Aleppo: A Byzantine e ...

2 v. (975 p.) * Geneviève Massignon, Brigitte Horiot, ''Linguistic and Ethnographic Atlas of the West: Poitou, Aunis, Saintonge, Angoumois'' , 3 volumes, 1971–1983. dited by CNRS.* Geneviève Massignon. ''De bouche à oreilles - Le conte populaire français'' , Berger-Levrault, coll. Territories, 1983 ( ) * Geneviève Massignon. ''Contes de l'Ouest, Brière, Vendée, Angoumois'' , éditions Érasme, Paris, 1954. * Geneviève Massignon. ''Corsetes'' , Corsica Studies Center for the Faculty of Arts and Humanities of Aix-en-Provence. Ophrys Edition, Gap 1963. * Geneviève Massignon. ''Traditional stories of the producers of linen from Trégor (Lower Brittany).'' A. and J. Picard and Cie, Paris 1965.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Massignon, Genevieve 1921 births 1966 deaths Acadia Collectors of fairy tales Dialectologists Linguists from France Women linguists Writers from Paris Writers from Quebec Women science fiction and fantasy writers 20th-century Canadian women writers 20th-century Canadian writers French women historians Women folklorists 20th-century linguists 20th-century French women writers