Passy

NAME:

Passy, Paul

ACHIEVEMENTS:

Advances in philology

NICKNAME/ALIAS:

None

DATE AND PLACE OF BIRTH:

13 January 1859, Versailles, France

DATE AND PLACE OF DEATH AND AGE AT DEATH:

1940. Aged 81

DISCIPLINE:

Philologist

FIELD:

Phonetics

LANGUAGE:

French

PARENTS:

Father: Frederic Passy

Mother: name??????

SIBLINGS:

brother: Jean

And?????

SPOUSE:

Edith-Beatrice Ivatts

CHILDREN:

Adopted three orphans

EDUCATION:

Privately at home

Sorbonne

MAJOR WORK:

"Etude sur les changements phonetiques"

"Sons  du francais"

LIFE AND TIMES:

At university Passy did badly until he was able to concentrate on the study of language. In 1886 he formed a society for English teachers, the "Fonetic titcers asociecon" of which he became president and his brother the secretary. "Dhi Fonetik Titcer", the journal of the society, attracted other phoneticians and became the forum for the developing science of phonetics.

Passy was a follower of phonetics as it had developed in England where the <influenced by> Pitman* phonetic shorthand system (1837) had become widely used in business and commerce.

Passy lectured with the English phoneticist <a colleague was> Sweet* at summer courses held at Edinburgh university and Sweet was an early contributor to "Dhi Fonetik Titcer".  Passy was concerned with the practical problems of language teaching and learning. He was interested in the description and classification of sounds, and in development of a notation system for recording speech in written form.

In 1887 he wrote his first major work, "Les sons du francais" (“French sounds”). His teacher's association changed its named in 1889 to "Association Phonetique des Professeurs de Langues Vivantes" in order to widen its appeal beyond those who taught English, and eight years later it became the "Association Phonetique Internationale".

The journal was renamed "Le Maitre Phonetique" and was still printed in transciption, using an alphabet Passy had developed himself.  

In 1893 he reviewed the phonetic shorthand named ‘Current’ which Sweet had developed. Passy preferred Pitman's system.

In 1894 Passy was appointed to a newly created chair of phonetics at the Ecoles des Hautes Etudes at the Sorbonne. He saw his work in phonetics as part of promoting universal understanding and he always stressed the communicative aspect of phonetics

and linguistics. He was one of the first to admit women to his lectures.

He co-authored the "Dictionnaire phonetique de la langue francaise" (1897) which was the first pronouncing dictionary using the "Association Internationale Phonetique"  symbolism, and which provided the model for the phonetic dictionary of English later written by <influenced> Daniel Jones*.

In 1898 Passy became a member of a small socialist group at  Bourg-la-Reine which he represented in 1899 at the Socialist Congress. 

In 1907 Passy, together with Jones, produced a new phonetic alphabet which eventually developed into the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). Passy also wrote textbooks, phonetic readers, books on the theory of phonetics, and other religious and political works. 

In 1908 he was one of the founder members of the Union of Socialist Christians who saw in socialist principles the most practical translation of the evangelical programme. The statues of the Union advocated agreement and international action between all workers and advocated a collectivist or communist society. The Union collected several hundred members, mostly Protestants in France, Switzerland and Belgium, and it provided a breeding ground for later Militants .

Because of his political views, Passy was dismissed from his university post when World War I  broke out in 1914. During the war he lost an adopted son. He was reinstated when the war ended in 1918.

He retired in 1926 and handed over the secretary-ship of the IPA to Jones the following year.

He used a small inheritance to create the agricultural colony of Liefra (a name standing for Liberty, Egality, Fraternity) near Fontette in the L'Aube. The colony was run as a semi-collective based on the laws of Moses. Passy lived  there himself and taught language, practising his fundamental Christianity and his socialist ideals.

ASSESSMENT: He made a valuable contribution to the development of phonetics,

particularly in clarifying the subject and applying it to practical teaching.

EXTRA CONNECTIONS:

Passy's father, Frederic, shared the Nobel prize with <father was Nobel with> Dunant* in 1901.

Met <met> Jespersen*

ONELINER:  Paul Passy, philologist

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

Asher, RE and Henderson, Eugenie JA, Towards a History of Phonetics, University Press, Edinburgh, 1981

Dictionnaire biographique du movement ouvrier francais. Tome 38. 1990 (87)