Giacomo Devoto (19 July 1897 – 25 December 1974) was an Italian historical linguist and one of the greatest exponents of the twentieth century of the discipline. He was born in Genoa and died in Florence.

Career

In 1939 he founded with Bruno Migliorini the magazine Lingua Nostra. In January 1945, after the Liberation, along with

Piero Calamandrei Piero Calamandrei (21 April 1889 – 27 September 1956) was an Italian author, jurist, soldier, university professor, and politician. Born in Florence, he was one of Italy's leading authorities on the law of civil procedure. After studies in Pis ...

, Corrado Tumiati, Enzo Enriques Agnoletti and Paride Baccarini, he founded, in Florence, the ''Associazione Federalisti Europei'' (AFE, its acronym – in English Association of European Federalists),''Piero Calamandrei e la Costituzione, Atti del Convegno tenuto a Salice Terme nel 1997'', Milano, M&B, 1997, pp. 59–60. (In Italian) uniting afterwards integrating into the European Federalist Movement founded by Altiero Spinelli, which between 1947–1948 had an important role. He received several degrees "honoris causa" from the

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, 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), ma ...

Basel , french: link=no, Bâlois(e), it, Basilese , neighboring_municipalities= Allschwil (BL), Hégenheim (FR-68), Binningen (BL), Birsfelden (BL), Bottmingen (BL), Huningue (FR-68), Münchenstein (BL), Muttenz (BL), Reinach (BL), Riehen (BS ...

, Strasbourg, Berlin (Humboldt), Krakow,

Zagreb Zagreb ( , , , ) is the capital and largest city of Croatia. It is in the northwest of the country, along the Sava river, at the southern slopes of the Medvednica mountain. Zagreb stands near the international border between Croatia and Slov ...

and

Lima Lima ( ; ), originally founded as Ciudad de Los Reyes (City of The Kings) is the capital and the largest city of Peru. It is located in the valleys of the Chillón, Rímac and Lurín Rivers, in the desert zone of the central coastal part of ...

Universities. He was President of the Accademia della Crusca from December 1963, Academician of

Denmark ) , song = ( en, "King Christian stood by the lofty mast") , song_type = National and royal anthem , image_map = EU-Denmark.svg , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of Denmark , establish ...

and

Finland Finland ( fi, Suomi ; sv, Finland ), officially the Republic of Finland (; ), is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It shares land borders with Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of B ...

, Glotología Emeritus and Rector of the Università degli Studi di Firenze. He, along with Gian Carlo Oli, was the author of the ''Vocabolario Illustrato della lingua italiana'' (Illustrated Vocabulary of the Italian language) and of the ''Vocabolario della lingua Italiana Il Devoto-Oli'' (Vocabulary of the Italian language), edited by Luca Serianni and Maurizio Trifone. He was one of the leading international experts on Indo-European languages (''Origini indoeuropee'', 1962), Latin (''Storia della lingua di Roma'' published in 1940) and Italian (''Avviamento alla etimologia italiana'' 1968, ''Il linguaggio d'Italia'' published in 1974, etc.). Among his contributions on Indo-European studies there is the elaboration of the concept of "Peri-Indo-European", i.e. everything that has hybrid characters between Indo-European and non-Indo-European. The term refers to both languages and territories but also peoples. The Peri-Indo-European can be seen as a rough Indo-European that was produced when traditions alien to the Indo-European were progressively altered by contact with the Indo-European. Devoto proposed and repeatedly supported the definition of the

Etruscan language Etruscan () was the language of the Etruscan civilization, in Italy, in the ancient region of Etruria (modern Tuscany, western Umbria, northern Latium, Emilia-Romagna, Veneto, Lombardy and Campania). Etruscan influenced Latin but was eventua ...

as Peri-Indo-European.

Publications

*Antichi italici. 1931 (Ancient Italic Peoples) *Storia della lingua di Roma. Capelli Editore, 1991, I ed. 1939 (History of the language of Rome) *Studi di stilistica, 1950 (Studies in Stylistics) *I fondamenti della storia linguistica. 1951 (The foundations of linguistic history) *Profilo di storia linguistica italiana. 1953 (An Outline of Italian linguistic history) *Origini indoeuropee. Edizioni di Ar, 008 I ed.1962 (Indo-European Origins) *I dialetti delle regioni d'Italia. Sansoni, Florencia 1972, con Gabriella Giacomelli (The dialects of the Italian regions) *Le origini e la lingua dei Lettoni en "Letonia". 1939 (Res Balticae 1997) (The origins of the Latvian language) *Le letterature dei paesi baltici, Sansoni 1969 (The literatures of the Baltic countries)

References

1897 births 1974 deaths Writers from Genoa Linguists from Italy Dialectologists 20th-century linguists {{Italy-linguist-stub