Eugen Dieth

Eugen Dieth (November 18, 1893 in Neukirch an der Thur — Mai 24, 1956 in Zollikon) was a Swiss linguist, phonetician and dialectologist. He is well known for his work in English and German phonetics, and for co-initiating the Survey of English Dialects.

Biography

Eugen Dieth studied General Linguistics, English and German at the University of Zurich and the University of Geneva. He got his PhD in 1919 with a dissertation on Middle English syntax. Between 1922 and 1927 he was lecturer in German in Aberdeen. In 1927 he became Professor extraordinarius and in 1947 Professor ordinarius for English, Old Norse and General Phonetics at the University of Zurich. He founded the Phonetics Laboratory of the University of Zurich in 1935. Between 1927 and 1936 he worked as a part-time editor for the Schweizerisches Idiotikon and between 1934 and his unexpected death from a stroke in 1956 he was the director of the Phonogram Archives of the University of Zurich. He got married to Hilde Martha Bachmann, the daughter of the Swiss professor of German Philology at the University of Zurich, Albert Bachmann, in 1951.