Ferdinand de Saussure

Ferdinand Mongin de Saussure was a Swiss linguist and semiotician. His ideas laid a foundation for many significant developments both in linguistics and semiology in the 20th century. He is widely considered one of the founders of 20thcentury linguistics and one of two major founders of semioticssemiology.

He was born in Geneva in 1857. His father was Henri Louis Frdric de Saussure, a mineralogist, entomologist, and taxonomist. Saussure showed signs of considerable talent and intellectual ability as early as the age of fourteen. After a year of studying Latin, Ancient Greek and Sanskrit and taking a variety of courses at the University of Geneva, he commenced graduate work at the University of Leipzig in 1876.

Source: Wikipedia