Louis Gauchat

He studied at the University of Zürich under Heinrich Morf and in Paris as a pupil of Gaston Paris, receiving his doctorate in 1890 with the dissertation Le patois de Dompierre. He later worked as a lecturer at Bern (1893–96) and Zürich (1897–1902). In 1902 was named a professor of Romance philology at the University of Bern. In 1907 he succeeded Jakob Ulrich at the University of Zürich, where he taught classes until 1931.^[1] In 1909, with Albert Bachmann, he founded the phonogram archives at the university.^[2] In 1926–28 he served as academic rector.^[1]

Gauchat studied the French language spoken in Switzerland. In 1899 he founded Glossaire des patois de la Suisse romande (Glossary of dialects of French-speaking Switzerland), an institution to publish studies of Switzerland's French dialects. The institute receives subsidies from French-speaking cantons and the Swiss Confederation. Jules Jeanjaquet and Ernest Tappolet assisted in phonetic survey work. The first issue of the glossary was published in 1924.^[3][4][5]

His 1905 article on the vernacular of the Swiss village of Charmey is considered a precursor in the field of sociolinguistics.^[1][6]

• Le patois de Dompierre, Halle sur Saale: E. Karras, impr., 1891 (dissertation thesis).
• Etude sur le ranz des vaches fribourgeois, Zürich: Zürcher und Furrer, 1899.
• L’unité phonétique dans le patois d’une commune, in: Aus romanischen Sprachen und Literaturen. Festschrift Heinrich Morf, Halle and d. Saale 1905, Nachdruck Genève 1980, S. 175–232.
• Grammaire et lexicographie des patois de la Suisse romande: Bibliographie analytique, Neuchâtel 1916
• Les noms de lieux et de personnes de la Suisse romande: Bibliographie analytique, Neuchâtel 1919
• Glossaire des patois de la Suisse romande fondé par Louis Gauchat, Jules Jeanjaquet, Ernst Tappolet, Neuchâtel 1924 ff.