Gustave Guillaume facts for kids
Gustave Guillaume (born December 16, 1883 – died February 3, 1960) was a French linguist. A linguist is someone who studies language. He also studied philology, which is the study of language in historical texts. Guillaume created a special way of looking at language called "psychomechanics."
Gustave Guillaume's Work
Gustave Guillaume learned about linguistics from Antoine Meillet. Meillet was a student of Ferdinand de Saussure, a very famous linguist. Guillaume learned how to compare languages and how they changed over time. He believed that language was a system that worked in our minds.
In 1919, Guillaume wrote an important book. It was called The problem of the article and its solution in the French Language. In this book, he looked at how words like "a," "an," and "the" (called articles) are used in French. He thought these words showed a "mental system" in a speaker's mind. This system helps us use language without even thinking about it. He studied articles for 20 years!
In 1929, he wrote another book, Temps et Verbe (Time and Verb). Here, he explained how verbs work. Verbs show when something happens (like past, present, or future). Guillaume showed how our minds create an "image of time" for each action. He realized that verbs are like a system of smaller systems. Speakers use these systems to create the right verb every time they speak.
This made Guillaume think about how all words are built. He wanted to understand the "grammatical systems" that give words their meaning. He looked at words in French and other Indo-European languages.
Guillaume realized that studying language wasn't just about understanding what we hear or read. He thought it was important to look at language from the speaker's side. He said that before we speak, our minds use what we know about our language. We form the meaning of a word, both its main idea and its grammar. Then, we say the word. This idea confirmed his belief that language has two parts: langue (the language system) and discours (how we actually use it). He saw these as a way language goes from a possible idea to something real.
Guillaume kept studying words. He saw each type of word (like nouns or verbs) as a way to add certain possibilities into sentences. His challenge was to figure out the mental steps, or "psychomechanisms," that create each part of speech. He also looked at languages where words are formed differently. In his later years, he started to create a general theory of the "vocable" (a word or term). He wanted to avoid forcing the rules of European languages onto other very different languages.
His Writings
From 1938 to 1960, Gustave Guillaume taught at a special school in Paris. He wrote down all his lectures, usually given twice a week. He also kept many notes and essays. All these papers, about 60,000 pages, are kept at Laval University in Quebec City, Canada.
So far, 20 books have been published from these writings. Only one book of his work has been translated into English. It's called Foundations for a Science of Language. It has parts from different lectures and essays. The first part, from a lecture in 1952–1953, starts like this:
"Science is founded on the insight that the world of appearances tells of hidden things, things which appearances reflect but do not resemble. One such insight is that what seems to be disorder in language hides an underlying order – a wonderful order. This observation is not mine – it comes from the great Meillet, who wrote that 'a language involves a system where everything fits together and has a wonderfully rigorous design.' This insight has been the guide and continues to be the guide of the studies pursued here."
This means that science helps us see the hidden order in things, even in language. He believed language has a beautiful, hidden order, just as his teacher Meillet said.
Awards and Recognition
In 1917, Gustave Guillaume won the Prix Volney (Volney Prize). This award is given for work in comparing different languages.
There is also an organization called the Association international de Psychomécanique du language (AIPL). This group holds a meeting every three years. Scholars who are interested in Guillaume's ideas about language come together to share their work. Link to the Association's website
Selected Works
- Gustave Guillaume, Foundations for a Science of Language, John Benjamins: Amsterdam/Philadelphia, 1984.
See also
In Spanish: Gustave Guillaume para niños
