Graziadio Isaia Ascoli

Graziadio Isaia Ascoli (16 July 1829 - 21 January 1907) was an Italian linguist.

Life and work

Ascoli was born in an Italian-speaking Jewish family in the multiethnic town of Gorizia, then part of the Austrian Empire (now in Italy). Already as a boy, he learned other languages traditionally spoken in the town, German, Friulian and Venetian.

Being an autodidact, he published in 1854 his first important work on the languages of the orient. In 1860 he was appointed professor of linguistics at the "Accademia scientifico-letteraria" in Milan and introduced the study of comparative philology, Romance studies and Sanskrit.

He made an important contribution to the study of the relationship between Indo-European and Semitic and was pioneer in the fields of the the Romani language and the Celtic languages.

In Italy he is above all known for his studies on the Italian dialects, which he was first to classify systematically. In the Italian language question ("questione della lingua"), he did not accept a standard language based on the Florentine dialect as proposed by Alessandro Manzoni, but argued for a levelling of the dialects.

He is the founder of the so-called substratum theory, which explains the formation and development of languages as a result of interference with previous languages spoken by the population in question.

He died in Milan.

Political views

Ascoli considered himself foremost a Friulian of Jewish religion, but was also an Italian patriot. Among other things, he coined the term "Venezia Giulia" as an alternative name for his native region. After World War One, Ascoli's newly invented name became the official denomination for the region previously known as the Austrian Littoral. This denomination still exists in the name of the Italian region Friuli-Venezia Giulia.