Marcel Samuel Raphaël Cohen (February 6, 1884 – November 5, 1974) 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 ...

. He was an important scholar of

Semitic languages The Semitic languages are a branch of the Afroasiatic language family. They are spoken by more than 330 million people across much of West Asia, the Horn of Africa, and latterly North Africa, Malta, West Africa, Chad, and in large immigra ...

and especially of Ethiopian languages. He studied the

French language French ( or ) is a Romance language of the Indo-European family. It descended from the Vulgar Latin of the Roman Empire, as did all Romance languages. French evolved from Gallo-Romance, the Latin spoken in Gaul, and more specifically in Nor ...

and contributed much to general linguistics.

Life

Marcel Cohen was born in

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 ...

. He studied at the

Lycée Condorcet The Lycée Condorcet () is a school founded in 1803 in Paris, France, located at 8, rue du Havre, in the city's 9th arrondissement. It is one of the four oldest high schools in Paris and also one of the most prestigious. Since its inception, var ...

. He attended

Antoine Meillet Paul Jules Antoine Meillet (; 11 November 1866 Moulins, France – 21 September 1936 Châteaumeillant, France) was one of the most important French linguists of the early 20th century. He began his studies at the Sorbonne University, where he was ...

's lectures at the

Collège de France The Collège de France (), formerly known as the ''Collège Royal'' or as the ''Collège impérial'' founded in 1530 by François I, is a higher education and research establishment (''grand établissement'') in France. It is located in Paris ne ...

and the

École pratique des hautes études The École pratique des hautes études (), abbreviated EPHE, is a Grand Établissement in Paris, France. It is highly selective, and counted among France's most prestigious research and higher education institutions. It is a constituent college o ...

. In 1905 he registered at the

École des langues orientales Institut national des langues et civilisations orientales ( en, National Institute for Oriental Languages and Civilizations), abbreviated as INALCO, is a French university specializing in the teaching of languages and cultures from the world. ...

and graduated in 1909. He Studied

Amharic Amharic ( or ; (Amharic: ), ', ) is an Ethiopian Semitic language, which is a subgrouping within the Semitic branch of the Afroasiatic languages. It is spoken as a first language by the Amharas, and also serves as a lingua franca for all oth ...

(under Mondon-Vidailhet), French linguistics,

Sanskrit Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had diffused there from the northwest in the late ...

, Ge'ez and South Arabian. He wrote his thesis on the

Arabic Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic languages, Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C ...

dialect The term dialect (from Latin , , from the Ancient Greek word , 'discourse', from , 'through' and , 'I speak') can refer to either of two distinctly different types of Linguistics, linguistic phenomena: One usage refers to a variety (linguisti ...

of the Jews of Algiers (''Le parler arabe des juifs d'Alger'').See Strelcyn 1975, p. 615. Between March 1910 and June 1911, he undertook a journey to

Ethiopia Ethiopia, , om, Itiyoophiyaa, so, Itoobiya, ti, ኢትዮጵያ, Ítiyop'iya, aa, Itiyoppiya officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a landlocked country in the Horn of Africa. It shares borders with Eritrea to the ...

in which he collected much material on Ethiopian languages.An account of this journey was written by him under the title: ''Rapport sur une mission linguistique en Abyssinie 1910-1911'' (Paris 1912). He succeeded Mondon-Vidailhet, who had just died, as ''chargé de cours d'Abyssin'' at the École des langues orientales.See Rouaud 2003, p. 766b. In 1916 he became Assistant Professor and in 1926 a full Professor. In 1919 he also became professor of Ethiopic at the École pratique des hautes études.See Strelcyn 1975, p. 616. He had several students who became distinguished ''éthiopisants'', such as:

Wolf Leslau __NOTOC__ Wolf Leslau ( yi, וולף לסלאו; born November 14, 1906 in Krzepice, Vistula Land, Poland; died November 18, 2006 in Fullerton, California) was a scholar of Semitic languages and one of the foremost authorities on Semitic languag ...

, Stefan Strelcyn and

Joseph Tubiana Joseph is a common male given name, derived from the Hebrew Yosef (יוֹסֵף). "Joseph" is used, along with "Josef", mostly in English, French and partially German languages. This spelling is also found as a variant in the languages of the mo ...

Works

* 1912: ''Le parler arabe des Juifs d'Alger''. Paris: Champion. * 1912: ''Rapport sur une mission linguistique en Abyssinie (1910-1911)''. Paris: Imprimerie Nationale. * 1920: ''Documents ethnographiques d'Abyssinie''. Paris: Leroux. * 1921: "La prononciation traditionelle du Guèze (éthiopien classique)", in: ''Journal asiatique'' Sér. 11 / T. 18
electronic version
in Gallica digital library of the

Bibliothèque nationale de France The Bibliothèque nationale de France (, 'National Library of France'; BnF) is the national library of France, located in Paris on two main sites known respectively as ''Richelieu'' and ''François-Mitterrand''. It is the national repository ...

PDF Portable Document Format (PDF), standardized as ISO 32000, is a file format developed by Adobe in 1992 to present documents, including text formatting and images, in a manner independent of application software, hardware, and operating systems. ...

). * 1924: ''Couplets amhariques du Choa''. Paris: Imprimerie Nationale. * 1924: ''Le système verbal sémitique et l'expression du temps''. Paris: Leroux. * 1924: (with

) ''Les langues du monde''. Paris: Champion. (2nd ed. 1952) * 1931: ''Etudes d'éthiopien méridional''. Paris: Geuthner. * 1934: ''Documents sudarabiques''. Paris: dépôt chez Adrien Maisonneuve. * 1936: ''Traité de langue amharique''. Paris: Institut d'Ethnographie. (reprinted: 1970, 1995 ) * 1939: ''Nouvelles études d'éthiopien meridional''. Paris: Champion. * 1947: ''Essai comparatif sur le vocabulaire et la phonétique chamito-sémitique''. Paris: Champion. * 1947: ''Histoire d'une langue: le français''. Paris: Editions Réunis. (4th ed., Editions Sociales 1974) * 1950: ''Regards sur la langue française''. Paris: Editions Sociales. * 1950: ''Le langage: structure et évolution''. Paris: Editions Sociales. * 1954: ''Grammaire et style''. * 1958: ''La grande invention de l'écriture et son évolution''. Paris: Klincksieck. * 1962: ''Etudes sur le langage de l'enfant''. Paris: Editions du Scarabée. * 1963: ''Nouveaux regards sur la langue française''. * 1963: ''Encore des regards sur la langue française''. * 1970: ''Toujours des regards sur la langue française''. * 1972: ''Une fois de plus des regards sur la langue française''. Paris: Editions Sociales.

References

* Bert, Jean-François (2015)
« Sociologie et linguistique. Penser la relation entre langue et société »
in Christine Laurière (dir.), ''1913. La recomposition de la science de l’Homme'', Les Carnets de Bérose n°7, Paris, BEROSE - International Encyclopaedia of the Histories of Anthropology, pp. 167–176. *Cohen, David (ed.) (1970). ''Mélanges Marcel Cohen: études de linguistique, ethnographie et sciences connexes offertes par ses amis et ses élèves à l'occasion de son 80ème anniversaire; avec des articles et études inédits de Marcel Cohen''. The Hague: Mouton. * Imprimerie Nationale (1955; ed.), ''Cinquante années de recherches linguistiques, ethnographiques, sociologiques, critiques et pédagogiques''. Paris. * Lentin, Irène (December 1984). "Marcel Cohen", in: ''Bulletin de l'Association des anciens élèves'', pp. 64–68. * Rouaud, Alain (1995), "Marcel Cohen", in: Pierre Labrousses, ''Deux siècles d'histoire de l'École des Langues orientales'' (Paris), pp. 363–367. * Rouaud, Alain (2003), "Cohen, Marcel", in: S. Uhlig et al. (eds.), ''

Encyclopaedia Aethiopica The ''Encyclopaedia Aethiopica'' (''EAe'') is a basic English-language encyclopaedia for Ethiopian and Eritrean studies. The ''Encyclopaedia Aethiopica'' provides information in all fields of the discipline, i.e. anthropology, archaeology, ethno ...

'' Vol. 1: A-C (Wiesbadn: Harrassowitz), pp. 766a-766b. *Strelcyn, S. (1975). "Obituary: Marcel Cohen", in: ''Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies'' 38/3, pp. 615–622. * Union Française Universitaire (1985; ed.), ''Hommage à Marcel Cohen''. Paris.

Life

Works

See also

References

References

External links