Georges Dottin | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | 29 October 1863 Liancourt, Oise |
| Died | 11 January 1928(1928-01-11) (aged 64) Rennes, Ille-et-Vilaine |
| Citizenship | French |
| Occupation | Philologist |
| Academic background | |
| Education | University of Rennes Sorbonne University École Pratique des Hautes Études |
| Academic work | |
| Institutions | University of Rennes |
| Notable works | La langue gauloise (1918) |
Henri-Georges Dottin (29 October 1863 – 11 January 1928) was a French philologist, Celtic scholar, and politician. Hismagnum opus,La langue gauloise (1918), remained the reference introduction to theGaulish language until the publication ofPierre-Yves Lambert'sLa langue gauloise in 1994. It is still widely used today as a textbook in Celtic linguistic studies.[1][2]
Henri-Georges Dottin was born on 29 October 1863 inLiancourt,Oise, the son of Charles-Henri Dottin, a tax collector and poet from Liancourt, and Marie-Cléophée-Mathilde Pourcelle, the daughter of Nicolas Florimond Pourcelle (1789–1858), a court bailiff and magistrate fromBreteuil, Oise.[3][4] The family established itself inLaval,Mayenne, where Dottin attended the lycée of Laval. He studied at theUniversity of Rennes, from where he graduated (1884), then atSorbonne University and theÉcole Pratique des Hautes Études.[3]
In 1891, Dottin was awarded the post of lecturer at theUniversity of Dijon. From November 1892, he lectured in Ancient Greek at the University of Rennes inBrittany, at that time a deeplyclericalist and conservative region. He married Marie Delaunay on 20 November 1894.[3] In 1896, Dottin became Doctor of Literature, then was appointed Professor of Celtic languages in 1903 at the University of Rennes.[5] Here, he metVictor Basch etHenri Sée [fr], who became his friends and fellow political activists.[3]
A left-wingRepublican, Dottin took the side ofAlfred Dreyfus, a French Jewish officer wrongly convicted of treason in 1894. In January 1899, he exposed "the situation of the proletariat abroad" to the activists of the RennesBourse du Travail, and in May of the same year presided over a meeting devoted to theDreyfus Affair during which several professors from the University of Rennes expressed themselves.[6]
In May 1908, Dottin was elected first deputy-mayor ofRennes on the Liste d'Entente des Comités Républicains, a coalition of Republicans, Socialists and anti-clericalists led byJean Janvier [fr], mayor of Rennes from 1908 to 1923. In 1910, Dottin was nominated as dean of the University of Rennes, succeedingJoseph Loth, and he subsequently left his position as first deputy-mayor after another municipal election in May 1912.[7] He nonetheless remained a municipal councillor until his death in 1928. As president of the Comité Radical et Radical-Socialiste de Rennes, Dottin was elected mayor of Rennes in the municipal election of 1925, but chose to leave the position to his friendCarle Bahon [fr], who became the first Socialist mayor of the city.[8] In 1919 he was awarded theLegion of Honour and was made correspondent of theAcadémie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres.[9]
Dottin opposed both the "reactionaries" who, in his words, tried to "maintain the Bretons in ancient prejudices", and the bourgeois and urban elite of Brittany who dismissed education in theBreton language as old-fashioned and as a fertile ground to separatism and nationalism. Instead, he considered that Breton culture and language should not be opposed to Republicanism and French patriotism, and called for the teaching of Breton in elementary schools, high schools, and universities.[8]
Georges Dottin died in Rennes on the night of 11–12 January 1928, at the age of 64, having contracted typhoid fever during his convalescence following a prostate operation.[5][9] His son,Paul Dottin [fr] (1895–1965), was a linguist.[4]
