Claude Favre de Vaugelas
Claude Favre de Vaugelas ( born January 6, 1585 Meximieu near Bourg -en- Bresse, † February 26, 1650 in Paris) was a French writer and philologist. As Sprachnormierer he is known to every historian of the French language.
Vaugelas was the son of a small - or neuadeligen judges in to 1601 to Savoy belonging province Bresse. In 1624, he inherited the title of " baron de Pérouges ".
He received a solid classical education, mainly through his father, and entered the service of the young Duc de Nemours, a cousin of the Duke of Savoy. In his wake he traveled extensively and acquired a good knowledge of Italian and Spanish. He eventually settled in Paris, where he held positions changing, eg a secretary and interpreter of a French aristocrat, whom he accompanied to Spain, or a tutor in another aristocratic family. He also could be obtained from the minor orders in order to possibly get lucrative church benefices and to accumulate as possible.
After all, he managed to get access to some swanky lounges, the capital, where they seem to have appreciated him, and to maintain contacts with a number of recognized authors, including François de Malherbe.
He himself was as a writer only a moderately successful translator from Latin and Spanish. After all, he acquired a reputation as a grammarian here and linguist. In 1634 he was, as a member of the circle around Valentine Conrart, a founding member of the Académie Française. Afterwards, he was actively involved from the beginning to the main project of the Academy, the dictionary of the French language whose concept he designed, where he was responsible himself for the letters A to I.
Dissatisfied with the slowness with which were progressing this and the other Academy projects, especially the grammar (which appeared first in 1932 and immediately was considered obsolete), he brought his own thoughts on paper as Remarques sur la Langue Françoise, utiles à tous ceux veulent qui bien parler et bien escrire (Notes to the French language for the benefit of those who speak and write well want ). The book was published in 1647 and reissued several times rapidly to well-known authority ( the Molière in his comedy Les Femmes savantes ironic ). With the Remarque Vaugelas became the ancestor of so many in France, still today the most active guardians and custodians of the French language.
As a standard for the " good use " (le bon usage) of the French continued Vaugelas the spoken usage of predominantly resident in Paris court nobility and the written language of the " good writers " ( bons auteurs ), ie, the recognized, working in Paris and in Paris salons trains running writer. He encouraged so that the growing aligned to Paris political centralism also in the language field and initiated a development that disadvantaged today, all persons who do not speak the Parisian embossed "Standard French " (français standard).