Henri Wittmann
Henri Wittmann ( born 1937 in Alsace ) is a Canadian linguist from Quebec. Best known are his works on the French language in Quebec.
Education and professional life
After studying with André Martinet at the Sorbonne Henri Wittmann went himself in exile in North America and taught initially successful at the University of Colorado at Boulder, the University of Alberta in Edmonton and the University of Windsor and McGill University in Montreal. Then taught Wittmann in the French university system of Quebec at Université du Québec à Trois- Rivières, the Université du Québec à Rimouski and at the Université de Sherbrooke. In 1997 he retired from teaching, after he had held an extensive series of lectures in France. In the following years he became the first director of the public relations department of the Université du Québec à Trois- Rivières and emeritus researcher at the Centre d'Analyse of Littératures Francophones des Amériques ( CALIFA ) at Carleton University in Ottawa.
Personal
Politically Henri Wittmann is known for its sympathies for anarcho-syndicalism and its strong links to the Confédération des syndicats nationaux, that measured on the number of members the second largest trade union federation in Quebec. In addition, he is active in anti - war movements. From 1974 to 1978 he was centrally involved in a conflict at the University of Quebec, by the practice of negotiations in the academic world has been permanently altered. As a specialist in the linguistic heritage of Quebec, he is a strong supporter of the independence of Quebec.
Wittmann since 1962 Life Member at the Linguistic Society of America ( LSA). In 1965 he founded together with André Rigault and Douglas Ellis linguistic department at McGill University in Montreal. In 1981 he founded together with Normand Beauchemin and Robert Fournier, the Association québécoise de linguistique, for whom he worked for ten years as president, general secretary and organizer of the annual meeting. Still in 1981, Wittmann became the first editor of the Revue québécoise de linguistique théorique et appliquée and maintained this activity for 20 years at.
Contributions to linguistics
As a representative of Comparative Literature Wittmann contributed to the study of the morphology of different languages and language families. Between 1963 and 2002, Wittmann has published more than 140 literary works on these subjects, including to:
- Pre- Indo-European languages ,
- Indo-European languages ( Hittite, Italic, Romance, Germanic, Creole )
- Afro-Asiatic languages ( Egyptian),
- African Languages ( Mande, Kwa, Bantu ),
- Austronesian languages (Malagasy, Polynesian ) and
- Amerindian languages ( Arawak, Carib ).
Works (selection)
- The Indo- European Drift and the position of Hittite
- A Transformational Sketch of old French
- Le joual, c'est -tu un créole?
- Règles de narration dans les Chancons de geste et le roman courtois
- Recent developments in diachronic linguistics