Antoine Meillet

Antoine Meillet (born Paul-Jules-Antoine Meillet, 11 November 1866 - 21 Septembre 1936) was one of the most important French linguists of the early 20th Century. Meillet began his studies at the Sorbonne, where he was influenced by Michel Br%e9al, Ferdinand de Saussure, and the members of the Annee Sociologique. In 1890 he was part of a research trip to the Caucasus, where he studied Armenian. After his return he continued his studies with Saussure.

Meillet completed his doctorat - Research on the Use of the Genitive-Accusative in Old Slavonic in 1897. In 1902 he took a chair in Armenian at the %c9cole des Langues Orientales. In 1905 he was elected to the College de France, where he taught on the history and structure of Indo-European languages.

Today Meillet is remembered as the mentor of an entire generation of linguists and philologists who would become central to French linguistics in the twentieth century, such as %c9mile Benveniste, Georges Dum%e9zil, and Andr%e9 Martinet.