"Breal" redirects here. For the Rapper see B-Real

B-Real

Louis Freese, better known by his stage name B-Real, is an American rapper of Cuban and Mexican heritage, and a film and TV actor...

Michel Jules Alfred Bréal (26 March 1832–1915), French philologist, was born at Landau

Landau

Landau or Landau in der Pfalz is an autonomous city surrounded by the Südliche Weinstraße district of southern Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It is a university town , a long-standing cultural centre, and a market and shopping town, surrounded by vineyards and wine-growing villages of the...

 in Rhenish Bavaria

Bavaria

Bavaria, formally the Free State of Bavaria is a state of Germany, located in the southeast of Germany. With an area of , it is the largest state by area, forming almost 20% of the total land area of Germany...

. He is often identified as a founder of modern semantics

Semantics

Semantics is the study of meaning. It focuses on the relation between signifiers, such as words, phrases, signs and symbols, and what they stand for, their denotata....

.

After studying at Weissenburg

Wissembourg

Wissembourg is a commune in the Bas-Rhin department in Alsace in northeastern France.It is situated on the little River Lauter close to the border between France and Germany approximately north of Strasbourg and west of Karlsruhe. Wissembourg is a sub-prefecture of the department...

, Metz

Metz

Metz is a city in the northeast of France located at the confluence of the Moselle and the Seille rivers.Metz is the capital of the Lorraine region and prefecture of the Moselle department. Located near the tripoint along the junction of France, Germany, and Luxembourg, Metz forms a central place...

 and Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

, he entered the École Normale Supérieure

École Normale Supérieure

The École normale supérieure is one of the most prestigious French grandes écoles...

 in 1852. In 1857 he went to Berlin, where he studied Sanskrit

Sanskrit

Sanskrit , is a historical Indo-Aryan language and the primary liturgical language of Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism.Buddhism: besides Pali, see Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Today, it is listed as one of the 22 scheduled languages of India and is an official language of the state of Uttarakhand...

 under Franz Bopp

Franz Bopp

Franz Bopp was a German linguist known for extensive comparative work on Indo-European languages.-Biography:...

 and Weber. On his return to France he obtained an appointment in the department of oriental manuscripts at the Bibliothèque Impériale. In 1864 he became professor of comparative grammar at the Collège de France

Collège de France

The Collège de France is a higher education and research establishment located in Paris, France, in the 5th arrondissement, or Latin Quarter, across the street from the historical campus of La Sorbonne at the intersection of Rue Saint-Jacques and Rue des Écoles...

, in 1875 member of the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-lettres

Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres

The Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres is a French learned society devoted to the humanities, founded in February 1663 as one of the five academies of the Institut de France.-History:...

, in 1879 inspecteur général for higher education until the abolition of the office in 1888. In 1890 he was made commander of the Legion of Honour.

Among his works, which deal mainly with mythological and philological subjects, may be mentioned:

• L' Etude des origines de la religion Zoroastrienne (1862), for which a prize was awarded him by the Académie des Inscriptions
• Hercule et Cacus (1863), in which he disputes the principles of the symbolic school in the interpretation of myths
• Le Mythe d'œdipe (1864)
• Les Tables Eugubines (1875)
• Mélanges de mythologie et de linguistique (2nd. ed., 1882)
• Leçons de mots (1882, 1886)
• Dictionnaire étymologique Latin (1885)
• Grammaire latine (1890).
• Essai de Sémantique (1897), on the signification of words, which was translated into English by Mrs H. Cust with preface by J. P. Postgate.
• a translation of Bopp's Comparative Grammar (1866–1874), with introductions, which is highly valued.

He also wrote pamphlets on education in France, the teaching of ancient languages, and the reform of French orthography. In 1906 he published Pour mieux connaitre Homère.

Michel Bréal can also be credited with the invention of the marathon race. He made the suggestion to put this event on the programme of the first modern Olympics

1896 Summer Olympics

The 1896 Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the I Olympiad, was a multi-sport event celebrated in Athens, Greece, from April 6 to April 15, 1896. It was the first international Olympic Games held in the Modern era...

 in Athens

Athens

Athens , is the capital and largest city of Greece. Athens dominates the Attica region and is one of the world's oldest cities, as its recorded history spans around 3,400 years. Classical Athens was a powerful city-state...

 in 1896 to his friend Pierre de Coubertin

Pierre de Coubertin

Pierre de Frédy, Baron de Coubertin was a French educationalist and historian, founder of the International Olympic Committee, and is considered the father of the modern Olympic Games...

. The event was to commemorate the Greek soldier Pheidippides

Pheidippides

Pheidippides , hero of Ancient Greece, is the central figure in a story which was the inspiration for a modern sporting event, the marathon.-The story:...

 who, according to several legends, ran from the Battle of Marathon

Battle of Marathon

The Battle of Marathon took place in 490 BC, during the first Persian invasion of Greece. It was fought between the citizens of Athens, aided by Plataea, and a Persian force commanded by Datis and Artaphernes. It was the culmination of the first attempt by Persia, under King Darius I, to subjugate...

to either Athens or Sparta.
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