This work translates Meillet’s classic philological study from the original 1908 French edition and the author’s 1922 introduction to a new printing.  Indexes, missing from the French editions, have been added by the translator for the convenience of the reader, as have bibliographical references to salient works from the half-century after original composition.

 

Antoine Meillet began his studies at the Sorbonne and was a student of Michel Bréal and Ferdinand de Saussure, completing his doctorate in 1897. In 1902 he took the chair in Armenian at the École des Langues Orientales and was elected to the College of France in 1905.

 

Samuel N. Rosenberg was for many years a professor of French and Italian at Indiana University.

 

“Meillet’s book is a minor classic. The translation, on the whole, is good.” -- Slavic and East European Journal