Graziadio Isaia Ascoli (16 July 1829 – 21 January 1907) was an Italian linguist.
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Ascoli was born in an Italian-speaking Jewish family in the multiethnic town of Gorizia, then part of the Austrian Empire (now in Italy). Already as a boy, he learned some of the other languages traditionally spoken in the town, German, Friulian, Slovene and Venetian.
An autodidact, he published his first important work on the languages of the orient in 1854. In 1860, he was appointed professor of linguistics at the Accademia scientifico-letteraria in Milan and introduced the study of comparative philology, Romance studies, and Sanskrit.
He made an important contribution to the study of the relationship between Indo-European and Semitic and was pioneer in the fields of Romani language and Celtic languages.
In Italy, he is above all known for his studies of Italian dialects, which he was first to classify systematically. In the Italian language question (questione della lingua), he did not accept a standard language based on the Florentine dialect as proposed by Alessandro Manzoni, but argued for a levelling of the dialects.
He is founder of the so-called substratum theory, which explains the formation and development of languages as a result of interference with previous languages spoken by populations in question.
He died in Milan.
Ascoli considered himself foremost a Friulian of Jewish religion, but was also an Italian patriot. Among other things, he coined the term Venezia Giulia as an alternative name for his native region. After World War I, Ascoli's newly invented name became the official denomination for the region previously known as the Austrian Littoral. This term still exists in the name of the Italian region Friuli-Venezia Giulia. He also coined the (now defunct) name Venezia Tridentina for the territory of today's region of Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol.
Works published in Italian: