Gérard Diffloth (13 February 1939 – 14 August 2023) was a French linguist known as a leading specialist in the

Austroasiatic languages The Austroasiatic languages ( ) are a large language family spoken throughout Mainland Southeast Asia, South Asia and East Asia. These languages are natively spoken by the majority of the population in Vietnam and Cambodia, and by minority popu ...

. As a linguistics professor, he was employed at the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, or UChi) is a Private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Its main campus is in the Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborhood on Chicago's South Side, Chic ...

and

Cornell University Cornell University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university based in Ithaca, New York, United States. The university was co-founded by American philanthropist Ezra Cornell and historian and educator Andrew Dickson W ...

. He received his Ph.D. from

UCLA The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California, United States. Its academic roots were established in 1881 as a normal school then known as the southern branch of the C ...

, after a dissertation on the

Irula language Irula is a Dravidian language spoken by the Irulas who inhabit the area of the Nilgiri mountains, in the states of Tamil Nadu, Kerala, and Karnataka, India. It is closely related to Tamil. It is written in the Tamil script. Origins The la ...

. He was an advocate of immersion fieldwork for linguistic research. Diffloth was known for his widely cited 1974 and 2005 classifications of the

. Diffloth was a consulting editor of the journal ''

Mon-Khmer Studies ''Mon-Khmer Studies'' was an academic journal that focused on Mon-Khmer languages. It was established in 1964 and ceased publication in 2016. From 1992 onwards, it was published by Mahidol University and SIL International SIL Global (formerl ...

''. Gérard Diffloth died on 14 August 2023, at the age of 84, in Surin, Thailand.

Selected bibliography

* Diffloth, Gérard. ''A History of the Khmer Language''. n preparation * Diffloth, Gérard. ''The Dvaravati Old Mon Language and Nyah Kur''. Monic language studies, vol. 1. Bangkok, Thailand: Chulalongkorn University Print. House, 1984. * Diffloth, Gérard. ''The Wa languages''. Berkeley: Dept. of Linguistics, University of California, 1980. * Diffloth, Gérard. ''An Appraisal of Benedict's Views on Austroasiatic and Austro-Thai Relations''. Kyoto: Center for Southeast Asian Studies, Kyoto University, 1976. * Diffloth, Gérard, and Zide, Norman H. ''Austroasiatic Number Systems''. 1976. * Diffloth, Gérard. ''Proto-Mon–Khmer Final Spirants''. Kyoto: Center for Southeast Asian Studies, Kyoto University, 1976. * Diffloth, Gérard. ''The Irula Language, a Close Relative of Tamil''. Doctoral thesis, University of California, Los Angeles, 1968.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Diffloth, Gerard 1939 births 2023 deaths University of Chicago faculty Cornell University faculty University of California, Los Angeles alumni Linguists of Austroasiatic languages Dravidologists Historical linguists People from Châteauroux Linguists of Munda languages Linguists from France People from Indre