Aurélien Sauvageot (1897–1988) was a French linguist. He was specialised in

Finno-Ugric languages Finno-Ugric () is a traditional linguistic grouping of all languages in the Uralic language family except for the Samoyedic languages. Its once commonly accepted status as a subfamily of Uralic is based on criteria formulated in the 19th centur ...

Biography

Sauvageot was born in

Constantinople Constantinople (#Names of Constantinople, see other names) was a historical city located on the Bosporus that served as the capital of the Roman Empire, Roman, Byzantine Empire, Byzantine, Latin Empire, Latin, and Ottoman Empire, Ottoman empire ...

, as his father was an engineer working in the service of the Ottoman Sultan. In 1918, Sauvageot was admitted at the

École Normale Supérieure École or Ecole may refer to: * an elementary school in the French educational stages normally followed by Secondary education in France, secondary education establishments (collège and lycée) * École (river), a tributary of the Seine flowing i ...

and started studying Germanic languages. Sauvageot's teachers, most prominent among them

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

, pushed him towards Finno-Ugric linguistics as the professorship for it was vacant since philologist

Robert Gauthiot Robert Edmond Gauthiot (13 June 1876, Paris – 11 September 1916, Paris) was a French Orientalist, linguist and explorer. Born in Paris, he became, in 1909, a member of the Société Asiatique and met Paul Pelliot. Together, they translated t ...

had been killed in the

First World War World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

. Sauvageot traveled to

Uppsala Uppsala ( ; ; archaically spelled ''Upsala'') is the capital of Uppsala County and the List of urban areas in Sweden by population, fourth-largest city in Sweden, after Stockholm, Gothenburg, and Malmö. It had 177,074 inhabitants in 2019. Loc ...

Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. It borders Norway to the west and north, and Finland to the east. At , Sweden is the largest Nordic count ...

where he started learning Finnish, then moved to

Finland Finland, officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It borders Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of Bothnia to the west and the Gulf of Finland to the south, ...

in June 1919, and stayed there until October. In 1923, he moved to Hungary to teach French at the Eötvös József Collegium in

Budapest Budapest is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns of Hungary, most populous city of Hungary. It is the List of cities in the European Union by population within city limits, tenth-largest city in the European Union by popul ...

. He remained there until 1929, then moved back to France and completed his doctoral thesis on the lexicon of Uralo-Altaic languages,The Uralo-Altaic family was a hypothesis about a relationship between the

Uralic The Uralic languages ( ), sometimes called the Uralian languages ( ), are spoken predominantly in Europe and North Asia. The Uralic languages with the most native speakers are Hungarian, Finnish, and Estonian. Other languages with speakers abo ...

and the

Altaic languages The Altaic () languages are a group of languages comprising the Turkic languages, Turkic, Mongolic languages, Mongolic and Tungusic languages, Tungusic language families, with some linguists including the Koreanic languages, Koreanic and Japon ...

. With the latter family discredited, the hypothesis is now obsolete and a complementary thesis on

Gothic Gothic or Gothics may refer to: People and languages *Goths or Gothic people, a Germanic people **Gothic language, an extinct East Germanic language spoken by the Goths **Gothic alphabet, an alphabet used to write the Gothic language ** Gothic ( ...

articles. In 1931, Sauvageot inaugurated the professorship for Finno-Ugric languages at the École française des Langues Orientales. In 1932 and 1937, he published, along with József Balassa and Marcel Benedek the first Hungarian-French and French-Hungarian dictionary. Although Sauvageot retired in 1967, he remained actively involved in the activities of both the

Société de Linguistique de Paris The Société de Linguistique de Paris (established 1864) is the editing body of the ''BSL'' (''Bulletin de la Société de Linguistique'') journal. Members of the society have included such well-known French linguists as Bréal, Saussure, Meil ...

and the

Cercle linguistique d'Aix en Provence Cercle is French for ''circle''. It can refer to: * Circle (administrative division) * Cercle (French colonial), an administrative unit of the French Overseas Empire * Cercle (Mali), the Malian administrative unit ** The specific Cercles of Mali ...

, until his death in 1988.

Notes

References

* * *Sauvageot, Aurélien. 1992. ''La structure du langage''. Aix-en-Provence: Publications de l’Université de Provence. *Sauvageot, Aurélien. 2013. ''Souvenirs de ma vie hongroise''. New ed. Budapest: Collège Eötvös József ELTE — Institut Français de Budapest. Orig. publ. Budapest: Corvina, 1988 1897 births 1988 deaths École Normale Supérieure alumni Finno-Ugrists Translators from Finnish 20th-century French translators 20th-century French linguists French expatriates in the Ottoman Empire {{France-linguist-stub