Louis Gauchat (born 12 January 1866 in

Les Brenets Les Brenets is a former municipality in the canton of Neuchâtel in Switzerland. On 1 January 2021 the former municipality of Les Brenets merged into Le Locle. History Les Brenets is first mentioned in 1325 as ''chiez le Bruignet''. Geograph ...

, Switzerland; died 22 August 1942 in

Lenzerheide Lenzerheide ( Romansh: ''Lai'') is a mountain resort in the canton of Graubünden, Switzerland at the foot of the Parpaner Rothorn. The village lies in the municipality Vaz/Obervaz in the district of Albula, sub-district Alvaschein. The ...

) was a Swiss

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 studied at the

University of Zürich The University of Zürich (UZH, german: Universität Zürich) is a public research university located in the city of Zürich, Switzerland. It is the largest university in Switzerland, with its 28,000 enrolled students. It was founded in 1833 f ...

under Heinrich Morf and in Paris as a pupil of

Gaston Paris Bruno Paulin Gaston Paris (; 9 August 1839 – 5 March 1903) was a French literary historian, philologist, and scholar specialized in Romance studies and medieval French literature. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1901, 19 ...

, receiving his doctorate in 1890 with the dissertation ''Le patois de Dompierre''. He later worked as a lecturer at Bern (1893–96) and Zürich (1897–1902), and in 1902 was named a professor of

Romance philology Romance studies or Romance philology ( an, filolochía romanica; ca, filologia romànica; french: romanistique; eo, latinida filologio; it, filologia romanza; pt, filologia românica; ro, romanistică; es, filología románica) is an acade ...

at the University of Bern. In 1907 he succeeded Jakob Ulrich at the University of Zürich, where he taught classes until 1931.Gauchat, Louis
Historischen Lexikon der Schweiz In 1909, with Albert Bachmann, he founded the

phonogram Phonogram may refer to: * A sound recording – see Geneva Phonograms Convention * ''Phonogram'' (comics), a comic book by Kieron Gillen and Jamie McKelvie * Phonogram (linguistics), a grapheme which represents a phoneme or a combination of phone ...

archives at the university. In 1926–28 he served as academic rector. Gauchat studied the French language spoken in Switzerland. In 1899 he founded ''Glossaire des patois de la Suisse romande'' (Glossary of dialects of French-speaking Switzerland), an institution to publish comprehensive studies of Switzerland's French dialects. The institute receives subsidies from French-speaking cantons and the Swiss Confederation. Jules Jeanjaquet and Ernest Tappolet assisted in

phonetic Phonetics is a branch of linguistics that studies how humans produce and perceive sounds, or in the case of sign languages, the equivalent aspects of sign. Linguists who specialize in studying the physical properties of speech are phoneticians. ...

survey work. The first issue of the glossary was published in 1924.

Published works

His 1905 article on the vernacular of the Swiss village of

Charmey Charmey (; frp, Chàrmê ) is a former municipality in the district of Gruyère in the canton of Fribourg in Switzerland. On 1 January 2014 the former municipalities of Charmey and Cerniat merged into the new municipality of Val-de-Charmey. ...

is considered a precursor in the field of

sociolinguistics Sociolinguistics is the descriptive study of the effect of any or all aspects of society, including cultural Norm (sociology), norms, expectations, and context (language use), context, on the way language is used, and society's effect on languag ...

.Human Communication: Theoretical Explorations
edited by Albert Silverstein * ''Le patois de Dompierre'', Halle sur Saale : E. Karras, impr., 1891 (dissertation thesis). * ''Etude sur le ranz des vaches fribourgeois'', Zürich : Zürcher und Furrer, 1899. * ''L’unité phonétique dans le patois d’une commune'', in: Aus romanischen Sprachen und Literaturen. Festschrift Heinrich Morf, Halle and d. Saale 1905, Nachdruck Genève 1980, S. 175–232. * ''Grammaire et lexicographie des patois de la Suisse romande'': Bibliographie analytique, Neuchâtel 1916 * ''Les noms de lieux et de personnes de la Suisse romande'': Bibliographie analytique, Neuchâtel 1919 * ''Glossaire des patois de la Suisse romande fondé'' par Louis Gauchat, Jules Jeanjaquet, Ernst Tappolet, Neuchâtel 1924 ff.

References

1866 births 1942 deaths People from Le Locle District Linguists from Switzerland Members of the Institute for Catalan Studies University of Bern faculty University of Zurich faculty {{Switzerland-linguist-stub