Jud, Jakob

Jakob Jud, (born Jan. 12, 1882, Wängi, Switz.—died June 15, 1952, Zürich), 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 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”).