Born in 1936 in Carthage (Tunisia).
Education and professional career
From an early age, Claude Hagège lived in an environment conducive to the discovery of many languages.
His later studies (entrance to the École normale supérieure in 1955) and the influence of great masters such as E. Benveniste, A. Martinet, L. Renou and M. Cohen were to steer this vocation along the path of theoretical study and the handling of the most diverse languages.
- 1953-1959 : Learning Arabic, Hungarian, Hebrew, Russian, Hindi, Peul, Japanese, etc. at the École des Langues Orientales, or on his own during his travels.
- 1958 : Agrégation in classics
- 1963-1969 : Public lecturer in General Linguistics at the IVe section of the École pratique des hautes études and at the Collège de France (1963-1969)
- 1969-1970 : Jakobson lectures at Harvard
- 1971 : Doctoral thesis
It subsequently became clear that the study of languages and the teaching of linguistics could not do without an in situ approach, hence a series of missions abroad : sub-Saharan Africa, the Far East, Western Europe, North American Indian Reserves, the Arabic-speaking world, the islands of Micronesia, etc., which did not exclude research into regional languages (1972 : patois of Poitou and Charente).
From all this work, Claude Hagège has drawn an acute awareness of the variety and diversity of the linguistic fact. In his lectures, publications and readings, he has made a point of :
- 1970-1987 : University of Poitiers
- 1971-174 : Paris 12 - Val-de-Marne
- 1976-1978 : Paris 4
- 1977-1978 : Paris 3
- 1977 : École Pratique des Hautes Études
Professor at the Collège de France, Chair of Linguistic Theory (1988-2006) : highlighting the common properties of languages, linking general features and typological research. In his most recent work, he has endeavored to build a theoretical model to account for the relationship between man and language. This anthropological approach has been the subject of several publications. In contemporary linguistics, it is one of Claude Hagège's hallmarks in the eyes of his colleagues in many foreign countries.
