Tullio De Mauro

Tullio De Mauro (31 March 1932 – 5 January 2017) was an Italian linguist and politician.

His newspaper and magazine writing included: from 1956 to 1964 in the weekly Il Mondo, from 1966 to 1979 in the newspaper Paese Sera, and from 1981 to 1990 regular columns on schooling (1981–85) and language (1986 onward) in the weekly L'Espresso.

He made occasional contributions to L'Unità, La Stampa, La Repubblica, Il Manifesto, Il Sole-24 Ore, and Il Mattino.

From 1960 to 1973 he often appeared on radio and television RAI, an activity he resumed in 1997-2000.

In 1963, De Mauro published the monumental Storia linguistica dell'Italia unita ("Linguistic History of Unified Italy").

Born in Torre Annunziata, De Mauro was the younger brother of the journalist Mauro De Mauro, who was kidnapped and killed in September 1970, while investigating the Sicilian Mafia.

Two years later De Mauro published L'introduzione alla semantica ("Introduction to Semantics") and, in 1971, Senso e significato.

Among his most noteworthy lecture series were those held at the Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa in 1973, the Scuola Superiore Studi Pavia IUSS as visiting professor in 2007, the University of Tübingen in 2009, and the online Università telematica internazionale Uninettuno in 2009.

In 1975 he was elected to the Regional Council of Lazio in the lists of PCI.

In 1976 he has been appointed commissioner for culture, position he held until 1978.

He served as Minister of Education during the second Government of Prime Minister Guliano Amato.

From 1978 onward he also worked on various RTSI (Swiss Italian Radio and Television) radio and TV broadcasts.

As a linguist, De Mauro also took an interest in Esperanto, writing about the language in his works.

He was especially interested in the likely advantages of Esperanto for the EU legislative system, as a witness or reference version of European laws and official documents.

After preparing the entries on semiotics of the Treccani encyclopedia and publishing the short volume Minisemantica (1982), De Mauro turned to the problem of language education.

De Mauro was a professor at the D'Annunzio University of Chieti–Pescara, and was director of the Department of Linguistic Science at the University of Rome La Sapienza, where his students included the noted linguist Gennaro Chierchia.

He also edited a foreword for the Esperantic manual of Bruno Migliorini (Cooperativa Editoriale Esperanto, Milan, 1995).

De Mauro delivered lectures and gave seminars at universities in several countries:

He held single guest lectures at numerous Italian universities and Italian cultural institutes abroad.

De Mauro was Professor Emeritus of General Linguistics at the Sapienza University of Rome, and held the post of Italian Minister of Education from 2000 to 2001.

From 2001 to 2010 he chaired digital world, the foundation of the city of Rome.

He wrote a regular column for Internazionale under the rubrics "The word" starting in 2006 and "Schools" from 2008.

On 23 June 2006, in recognition of lifetime research and scholarship, the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei awarded him the Prize of the President of the Republic, which was presented by Italian President Giorgio Napolitano in October.

He was granted numerous honorary degrees, including:

He received the Giambattista Vico Foundation of Naples and Vatolla international prize in 2009.