Walther von Wartburg (May 18, 1888; Riedholz

Riedholz

Riedholz is a municipality in the district of Lebern in the canton of Solothurn in Switzerland. In 2011 Niederwil merged into Riedholz.-History:Riedholz is first mentioned in 1367 as im Rietholz. Niederwil is first mentioned in 1292 as Lomolzwile....

 – August 15, 1971; Basel

Basel

Basel or Basle In the national languages of Switzerland the city is also known as Bâle , Basilea and Basilea is Switzerland's third most populous city with about 166,000 inhabitants. Located where the Swiss, French and German borders meet, Basel also has suburbs in France and Germany...

) was a Swiss

Swiss (people)

The Swiss are citizens or natives of Switzerland. The demonym derives from the toponym of Schwyz and has been in widespread use to refer to the Old Swiss Confederacy since the 16th century....

 philologist

Philology

Philology is the study of language in written historical sources; it is a combination of literary studies, history and linguistics.Classical philology is the philology of Greek and Classical Latin...

 and lexicographer

Lexicography

Lexicography is divided into two related disciplines:*Practical lexicography is the art or craft of compiling, writing and editing dictionaries....

. He was the author of the Französisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch

Französisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch

The Französisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch or FEW is the principal etymological dictionary of the Gallo-Romance languages . It was the brainchild of the Swiss philologist Walther von Wartburg.- History :...

 (FEW).

After studying at the universities of Berne

University of Berne

The University of Bern is a university in the Swiss capital of Bern and was founded in 1834. It is regulated and financed by the Canton of Bern. It is a comprehensive university offering a broad choice of courses and programmes in eight faculties and some 160 institutes. The university is an...

, Zurich

University of Zurich

The University of Zurich , located in the city of Zurich, is the largest university in Switzerland, with over 25,000 students. It was founded in 1833 from the existing colleges of theology, law, medicine and a new faculty of philosophy....

, Florence and Paris (The Sorbonne), in 1918 he presented his doctoral thesis ("Names for sheep in Romance languages"). In 1921 he became Privatdozent

Privatdozent

Privatdozent or Private lecturer is a title conferred in some European university systems, especially in German-speaking countries, for someone who pursues an academic career and holds all formal qualifications to become a tenured university professor...

 at Berne. He worked in the method of Lausanne

Lausanne

Lausanne is a city in Romandy, the French-speaking part of Switzerland, and is the capital of the canton of Vaud. The seat of the district of Lausanne, the city is situated on the shores of Lake Geneva . It faces the French town of Évian-les-Bains, with the Jura mountains to its north-west...

, and later studied, from 1929 to 1939, at the University of Leipzig

University of Leipzig

The University of Leipzig , located in Leipzig in the Free State of Saxony, Germany, is one of the oldest universities in the world and the second-oldest university in Germany...

. From 1940 to 1959, he was Professor of French Philology at the University of Basle.

His chief work is without a doubt the "Etymological French Dictionary" (whose original German

German language

German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....

 title is Französisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch

Französisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch

The Französisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch or FEW is the principal etymological dictionary of the Gallo-Romance languages . It was the brainchild of the Swiss philologist Walther von Wartburg.- History :...

).

Von Wartburg had honorary doctorates from the University of Lausanne

University of Lausanne

The University of Lausanne in Lausanne, Switzerland was founded in 1537 as a school of theology, before being made a university in 1890. Today about 12,000 students and 2200 researchers study and work at the university...

 and the University of Leeds

University of Leeds

The University of Leeds is a British Redbrick university located in the city of Leeds, West Yorkshire, England...

. In 193 he received the German Order of Merit

Pour le Mérite

The Pour le Mérite, known informally as the Blue Max , was the Kingdom of Prussia's highest military order for German soldiers until the end of World War I....

 for Science and the Arts.

Today, a literary award

Literary award

A literary award is an award presented to an author who has written a particularly lauded piece or body of work. There are awards for forms of writing ranging from poetry to novels. Many awards are also dedicated to a certain genre of fiction or non-fiction writing . There are also awards...

, the Prix Wartburg de Littérature, is awarded each 25 April in recognition of a : "Defender of the French language

French language

French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...

, remarkable for the elegance of his writing and/or for his non-conformity. It is not necessarily given for a work published in the previous year: it can also mark the completion of a work or a much older book".

He was married four times, the last to the Swiss German debutante Fraulien Gisela vonRichthoffen.