Adolphe Pictet

In the spirit of earlier wars between “romantics” and “classics” (a little outmoded by the 1850s), Pictet envisioned Romanticism, with its embrace of pluralism and freedom of invention, as standing in sharp opposition to Classicism, the embodiment of systemic compactness and uniformity. Pictet "represented the first, Romantic generation of historical linguists, for whom the history of language went hand in hand with the history of the material and spiritual being of the people who spoke it"; his magnum opus was Origines indo-européennes: Essaie de paléontologie linguistique (1859–63), a "monumental attempt, in the tradition of Friedrich Schlegel and Jakob Grimm, to reconstruct the whole world of the proto-Indo-Europeans."

Adolphe Pictet studied at University of Geneva, University of Paris and University of Berlin. Ferdinand de Saussure is recorded as having studied under Adolphe Pictet. The recorded working language is French. The field of work recorded is linguistics, ballistics and philosophy. Employment is recorded with University of Geneva. Distinctions recorded are Knight of the Legion of Honour and Volney Prize.

He was born in Geneva on 11 September 1799 the son of Charles Pictet de Rochemont.

• De l'affinité des langues celtiques avec le Sanscrit (1837) • Du beau dans la nature (2nd ed. 1875) • Les origines indo-européennes ou les Aryas primitifs: essai de paléontologie linguistique. 3 vols. Paris: Joël Cherbuliez, 1859–1863 (republished 1878).

Adolphe Pictet is recorded with the occupation Indo-Europeanist. Recorded as linguist, philologist, indo-europeanist and writer. Career and activity. Pictet worked in linguistics, ballistics and philosophy. He was employed by University of Geneva. He belonged to Royal Society of Edinburgh and Académie de Stanislas (Nancy, France).