Antoni Dufriche-Desgenettes (26 February 1804,

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. Si ...

– 19 December 1878,

Saint-Mandé Saint-Mandé () is a high-end commune of the Val-de-Marne department in Île-de-France in the eastern suburbs of Paris, France. It is located from the center of Paris. It is one of the smallest communes of the Île-de-France by land area, but ...

), baptized ''Antoine Marie Dufriche-Foulaines'', was a French seafaring merchant, poet and amateur

phonetician 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 ...

Biography

His father François Nicolas, a brother of

René-Nicolas Dufriche Desgenettes René-Nicolas Dufriche, baron Desgenettes (23 May 1762, Alençon – 3 February 1837, Paris) was a French military doctor. He was chief doctor to the French army in Egypt and at Waterloo. Life Early life Son of a lawyer at the Parliament of ...

, had changed his family name from ''Dufriche-Desgenettes'' to ''Foulaines-Dufriche'' and was a lawyer and political writer; Antoni's mother Antoinette Elisabeth Vassault-Vareille was a translator from English and a publisher-bookseller. After many years at sea, Dufriche worked in the Netherlands as a French teacher for some time. In the late 1850s, he returned to Paris but still frequently travelled abroad, especially to Java. His travels enabled him to collect information about the

sound In physics, sound is a vibration that propagates as an acoustic wave, through a transmission medium such as a gas, liquid or solid. In human physiology and psychology, sound is the ''reception'' of such waves and their ''perception'' by ...

s of many languages and to develop a universal phonetic alphabet. He is best known for the introduction of the term

phoneme In phonology and linguistics, a phoneme () is a unit of sound that can distinguish one word from another in a particular language. For example, in most dialects of English, with the notable exception of the West Midlands and the north-wes ...

(in its French form ''phonème'') for an individual

as an element of a language-specific or universal sound inventory. It is attested in his writings since the early 1860sJoachim Mugdan, "On the Origins of the Term ''Phoneme''", ''Historiographia Linguistica'' 38 (2011), 85-110.Joachim Mugdan, "More on the origins of the term ''phonème''", ''Historiographia Linguistica'' 41 (2014), 185-187. and became more widely known through several papers which Dufriche presented at meetings of 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 A journal, from the Old French ''journal'' (meaning "daily"), may refer to: *Bullet journal, a met ...

(Paris Linguistics Society). The first of these, "Sur la nature des consonnes nasales" n the nature of nasal consonants, in French which

Louis Havet Pierre Antoine Louis Havet (; 6 January 1849, Paris – 26 January 1925, Paris) was a French Latinist and Hellenist, an expert on classical Greek and Latin poetry. He was the son of Ernest Havet. He was professor at Collège de France, where in 1 ...

read for him on 24 May 1873, was not published, but an anonymous report, probably written by Havet, summarized it and drew attention to the term ''phonème''."Société de Linguistique: Séance du 24 mai 1873", ''Revue critique d'histoire et de littérature'' 7 (1873), 1er semestre, 368. In 1860, Dufriche joined the ''Société d'ethnographie orientale et américaine'' (Society for oriental and American ethnography), whose members "were largely linguists and specialists in Asian texts and pre-Columbian codices",Martin Staum, "Nature and Nurture in French Ethnography and Anthropology, 1859–1914", ''Journal of the History of Ideas'' 65 (2004), 475-495, p. 476. and he was among the founders of the

in 1864. As an

autodidact Autodidacticism (also autodidactism) or self-education (also self-learning and self-teaching) is education without the guidance of masters (such as teachers and professors) or institutions (such as schools). Generally, autodidacts are individu ...

linguistics Linguistics is the science, 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 ...

, he remained something of an outsider, however, and it is likely that the term ''phoneme'' survived primarily thanks to its acceptance by

,John E. Joseph, "Dufriche-Desgenettes and the Birth of the Phoneme", in: Sheila Embleton, John E. Joseph & Hans-Josef Niederehe (eds.), ''The Emergence of the Modern Language Sciences: Studies on the Transition from Historical-Comparative to Structural Linguistics in Honour of E.F.K. Koerner'', Amsterdam & Philadelphia: Benjamins 1999, vol. 1, 55-75. although it underwent a number of metamorphoses in the course of half a century until it finally acquired the meaning 'smallest distinctive unit'.Joachim Mugdan, "The Origin of the Phoneme: Farewell to a Myth", ''Lingua Posnansiensis'' 28 (1985 ctually 1987, 137-150 eprinted in: Charles W. Kreidler (ed.), ''Phonology: Critical concepts, Vol. V: The Interface with Morphology and Syntax''. London & New York: Routledge 2001, 4-20Joachim Mugdan, "Die Anfänge der Phonologie" he Beginnings of Phonology, in German In: Peter Schmitter (ed.), ''Sprachtheorien der Neuzeit II: Von der Grammaire de Port-Royal (1660) zur Konstitution moderner linguistischer Disziplinen'' (Geschichte der Sprachtheorie 5). Tübingen: Narr 1996, 247-318. A biographical sketch of Dufriche was compiled by E. F. K. Koerner in 1976,E nstF iderykK nradKoerner, "A Minor Figure in 19th-Century French Linguistics: A. Dufriche-Desgenettes". ''Phonetica'' 33 (1976), 222-231 eprinted in E. F. K. Koerner, ''Toward a Historiography of Linguistics: Selected Essays''. Amsterdam: Benjamins 1978, 127-136 but his date of death and his full first name long remained a mystery.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Dufriche-Desgenettes, Antoni 1804 births 1878 deaths Linguists from France French merchants 19th-century French businesspeople French expatriates in the Netherlands