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Ferdinand de Saussure
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Ferdinand de Saussure seated in a formal pose, wearing a dark suit with a vest and sporting a thick mustache, circa 1900.
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Ferdinand de Saussure seated in a formal pose, wearing a dark suit with a vest and sporting a thick mustache, circa 1900.
Ferdinand de Saussure Much of the foundation of 20th-century sociolinguistics was created by the Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure (1857–1913).

Ferdinand de Saussure

Swiss linguist
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Ferdinand de Saussure (born Nov. 26, 1857, Geneva, Switz.—died Feb. 22, 1913, Vufflens-le-Château) was a Swiss linguist whose ideas on structure in language laid the foundation for much of the approach to and progress of the linguistic sciences in the 20th century. While still a student, Saussure established his reputation with a brilliant contribution to comparative linguistics, Mémoire sur le système primitif des voyelles dans les langues indo-européennes (1878; “Memoir on the Original System of...

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