René de Saussure
| René de Saussure | |
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Portrait of René de Saussure, before 1909.
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| Born |
17 March 1868 Geneva, Switzerland |
| Died | 2 December 1943 (aged 75) Berne, Switzerland |
| Nationality | Swiss |
| Occupation | Esperantist, professional mathematician |
| Known for | Inventor of Esperanto II |
| Relatives | Ferdinand de Saussure (brother) |
René de Saussure (17 March 1868 – 2 December 1943) was a Swiss Esperantist and professional mathematician (he defended in 1895 a doctoral thesis on a subject in geometry in Geneva), who composed important works about Esperanto and interlinguistics from a linguistic viewpoint. He was born in Geneva, Switzerland. His chef d'oeuvre is an analysis on the logic of word construction in Esperanto, Fundamentaj reguloj de la vortteorio en Esperanto, ("Fundamental rules of word theory in Esperanto") defending the language against several Idist critiques. He developed the concept of neceso kaj sufiĉo ("necessity and sufficience") by which he opposed the criticism of Louis Couturat that Esperanto lacks recursion.
In 1907, de Saussure proposed the international currency spesmilo (₷). It was used by the Ĉekbanko esperantista and other British and Swiss banks until the First World War.
Beginning in 1919, de Saussure proposed a series of Esperanto reforms, and in 1925, he renounced Esperanto in favor of his language Esperanto II. He later became a consultant for the International Auxiliary Language Association, the linguistic research body that standardized and presented Interlingua. He died on 2 December 1943 in Berne, Switzerland.
René was the brother of the famous linguist Ferdinand de Saussure.
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