Fernand Mossé (25 May 1892 – 10 July 1956) was a 20th-century French

philologist Philology () is the study of language in oral and written historical sources; it is the intersection of textual criticism, literary criticism, history, and linguistics (with especially strong ties to etymology). Philology is also defined as th ...

and historian, specialized in

Germanic languages The Germanic languages are a branch of the Indo-European language family spoken natively by a population of about 515 million people mainly in Europe, North America, Oceania and Southern Africa. The most widely spoken Germanic language, E ...

and German literature.

Biography

An agrégé of English, Fernand Mossé was a lecturer at the Bangor University in Wales. He later taught in lycées in Nice and Nancy. In 1926, he was appointed at 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 1938, he defended his doctoral dissertation, devoted to

periphrastic In linguistics, periphrasis () is the use of one or more function words to express meaning that otherwise may be expressed by attaching an affix or clitic to a word. The resulting phrase includes two or more collocated words instead of one in ...

forms of English. In 1949 he was appointed to the chair of languages and literatures of Germanic origin 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 n ...

Selected bibliography

*1914: ''La Laxdoela Saga : légende historique islandaise'', Paris, Alcan (translation) *1933: ''La Saga de Grettir'', Paris, Aubier Montaigne (translation) *1938: ''Histoire de la forme périphrastique être + participe présent en germanique'', Paris, Klincksieck *1942: ''Manuel de la langue gotique'', Paris, Aubier Montaigne *1942: ''Manuel de l'allemand du Moyen Âge, des origines au XIVe siècle'' (with Alfred Jolivet), Paris, Aubier Montaigne *1946: ''Manuel de l'anglais du Moyen Âge, des origines au XIVe siècle'', 4 vol., Paris, Aubier Montaigne *1947: ''Esquisse d'une histoire de la langue anglaise'' *1959: ''Histoire de la littérature allemande'' (ed), Aubier

External links

Fernand Mossé
on data.bnf.fr
''Manuel de l'anglais du Moyen Age des origines au 14e'' siècle
o
Persée
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mosse, Fernand French philologists Germanists Collège de France faculty École pratique des hautes études faculty Linguists of Germanic languages Writers from Marseille 1892 births 1956 deaths Corresponding Fellows of the Medieval Academy of America 20th-century philologists