Jakob Jud

Jakob Jud (born Jan. 12, 1882, Wängi, Switz.—died June 15, 1952, Zürich) was a Swiss linguist who used comparative linguistics to reconstruct cultural history. He taught French at the lyceum of Zürich from 1906 to 1922 and afterward was a professor of Romance languages at the University of Zürich.

Jud mediated imaginatively between the linguistic traditions of Germany-Austria, France, and Italy, concentrating on the Rhaeto-Romance dialects, French, Provençal, and Italian; he preferred subtle lexicology to rigid historical grammar. His monographs depict early contacts among Latin, Celtic, and Germanic peoples; the linguistic effects of the Christian religion; and the changing Swiss linguistic configuration. He worked closely with another noted Swiss Romance linguist, Karl Jaberg, on the monumental work Sprach- und Sachatlas Italiens und der Südschweiz, 8 vol. (1928–40; “Italian and Southern Swiss Linguistic and Fact Atlas”).