Linguists from France

Roland Gérard Barthes (; French: [ʁɔlɑ̃ baʁt]; 12 November 1915 – 26 March 1980) was a French literary theorist, essayist, philosopher, critic, and semiotician. His work engaged in the analysis of a variety of sign systems, mainly derived from Western popular culture. His ideas explored a diverse range of fields and influenced the development of many schools of theory, including structuralism, anthropology, literary theory, and post-structuralism.
Barthes is perhaps best known for his 1957 essay collection Mythologies, which contained reflections on popular culture, and the 1967/1968 essay "The Death of the Author," which critiqued traditional approaches in literary criticism. During his academic career he was primarily associated with the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS) and the Collège de France.

Théophile Cart (March 31, 1855 in Saint-Antoine-de-Breuilh - May 21, 1931 in Paris) was a French Esperantist professor and linguist.
Beginning in 1907, Cart was an editor for Lingvo Internacia.

Maurice Gross (born 21 July 1934 in Sedan, Ardennes department; died 8 December 2001 in Paris) was a French linguist and scholar of Romance languages. Beginning in the late 1960s he developed Lexicon-Grammar, a method of formal description of languages with practical applications.

Jean Gagnepain (November 16, 1923 – January 3, 2006) was a French linguist and anthropologist.

Henri Meschonnic (18 September 1932, in Paris – 8 April 2009, in Villejuif) was a French poet, linguist, essayist and translator. He is remembered today as both a theoretician of language and as a translator of the Old Testament. The 710-page Critique du rythme, probably remains his most famous theoretical work. As a translator of the Old Testament he published many volumes, including Les cinq rouleaux in 1970 (Song of Songs, Ruth, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, Esther); Jona et le signifiant errant in 1998 (Jonah); Gloires in 2000 (Psalms); Au commencement in 2002 (Genesis); Les Noms in 2003 (Exodus); Et il a appelé in 2005 (Leviticus); and Dans le désert in 2008 (Numbers).

Michel Lejeune (30 January 1907 – 27 January 2000) was a French linguist, a specialist in the sound changes of Ancient Greek. He was a member of the Académie des inscriptions et belles-lettres.

Claude Hagège (French: [aʒɛʒ]; born 1 January 1936) is a French linguist.

Bernard Cerquiglini (born 8 April 1947 in Lyon, France), is a French linguist.
A Graduate of the École normale supérieure de Saint-Cloud, having received an agrégé and a doctorate in letters, he was a teacher of linguistics in University of Paris VII, former director of the National Institute for the French language, former vice-president of the Conseil supérieur de la langue française and president of the French National Reading Observatory. In 1995 Bernard Cerquiglini joined the Oulipo. He was in charge of a governmental studies on a French orthography reform and about national languages in France. He received the title Doctor Honoris Causa at ULIM.

André Martinet (French: [ɑ̃.dʁe maʁ.ti.nɛ]; Saint-Alban-des-Villards, 12 April 1908 – Châtenay-Malabry, 16 July 1999) was a French linguist, influential due to his work on structural linguistics. In linguistic theory, Martinet is known especially for his studies on linguistic economy and double articulation.