Amado Alonso facts for kids
Amado Alonso (born September 13, 1896, in Lerín, Navarre, Spain – died May 26, 1952, in Arlington, Massachusetts, USA) was a very important Spanish scholar. He was a philologist, a linguist, and a literary critic.
- A philologist studies language in written historical sources.
- A linguist studies language itself, how it works, and how it changes.
- A literary critic analyzes and judges books and other writings.
Amado Alonso later became a citizen of Argentina. He also helped create a field of study called stylistics. This is the study of how language is used in literature to create certain effects.
Alonso learned from Ramón Menéndez Pidal in Madrid, Spain. There, he studied how sounds are made in language (phonetics) and how languages change across different areas (geographical linguistics). From 1927 to 1946, he lived in Buenos Aires, Argentina. He led the Institute of Philology there. After that, he moved to Harvard University in the United States. He lived in America until he passed away.
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Amado Alonso's Studies and Contributions
Amado Alonso explored many different language topics. These included phonetics (the study of speech sounds) and dialectology (the study of different language varieties). He was very interested in studying his own language, Spanish. He also helped the academic world in Latin America a lot.
Alonso followed the ideas of his teacher, Menéndez Pidal. But he also started his own clear research path in linguistics. He was influenced by the works of Spanish-American writers like Bello and Cuervo. His studies comparing different types of American Spanish helped people appreciate the language more.
Early Works and Publications
Alonso's first published work was about the history of language. He showed how modern Spanish words came from older Latin words. For example, he showed how "Augustu" became "agosto" (August). He wrote many articles, often published in a journal called Revista de Filología Española.
Some of his most important works came out between 1928 and 1938. This was when he lived in Buenos Aires. He wrote many articles for newspapers and magazines. These were later collected into books about language. His big two-volume work, "From medieval to modern Spanish pronunciation," was published after he died in 1955.
Spreading New Ideas
Amado Alonso helped make structuralism popular. This is a way of studying language by looking at its structure and systems. He also shared other important ideas from his time. In 1945, he translated a famous book called "Course in General Linguistics" by Ferdinand de Saussure. He added an important introduction to this book. He did the same for works by other scholars like Charles Bally and Karl Vossler.
Work at Harvard
When he was at Harvard University, Alonso started a new journal. It was called the Nueva Revista de Filología Española. This journal was published by the Colegio de Mexico. His goal was to bring back the spirit of the Revista de Filología Española. He had created and led that journal in Buenos Aires from 1939 to 1946.
Alonso was recognized for his important work. He became an international member of the American Philosophical Society. He was also an International Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
See also
In Spanish: Amado Alonso para niños
