Émile Benveniste was born in Aleppo (Syria) in 1902. He was sent to Paris at an early age to pursue rabbinical studies, but it was to comparative grammar that he eventually decided to devote his intellectual energy. Indo-European linguistics, particularly Indo-Iranian, was to be the main subject of his published work and teaching. In addition to articles and specialized works (notably Origines de la formation des noms en indo-européen [Origins of Noun Formation in Indo-European], 1936, and Noms d’agent et noms d’action en indo-européen [Agent Nouns and Action Nouns], 1948, which are reference works in the discipline), Benveniste published texts aimed at a wider public: Le Vocabulaire des institutions-indo-européennes (1969) [Indo-European Language and Society (1973)] and the two volumes of selected essays Problèmes de linguistique générale [1966, 1974; Problems in General Linguistics, 1971]. The aim...
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Citation: Laplantine, Chloe. "Emile Benveniste". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 18 December 2024 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=375, accessed 09 June 2026.]
