Ferdinand de Saussure

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...