User:Muspilli/Henriette Walter

Henriette Walter (b. 5 March 1929 in Sfax, Tunisia) is a French linguist, emeritus professor of French at the University of Rennes 2, and director of the Phonology Laboratory at the École pratique des hautes études at the Sorbonne. She is known for both her specialized academic work and her popular linguistics publications.

Biography
Henriette Saada was born in Tunisia to a French mother and an Italian father. She learned to handle multiple languages at an early age: at home she spoke Italian, at school she spoke French, and in the streets she heard Arabic and Maltese spoken. A sufferer of serious myopia, she responded by training her hearing. She is quoted as saying: "As a little girl, I liked the idea that an object could have multiple names, that emotions could be expressed in different ways." She was able to convince her parents to let her go to study English at the Sorbonne, where she performed brilliantly in the International Phonetic Association examination.

In July 1954 she married Gérard Walter, a graduate of physics and chemistry, who worked with her on multiple publications and with whom she had two children, Isabelle (b. 1955) and Éric (b. 1960; known as Hector Obalk, an art historian).

A decisive event in her life was meeting the linguist André Martinet. She became his closest collaborator and organized a workshop at the École pratique des hautes études from 1966 onwards.

Research and popularization
Henriette Walter is known for her work in phonology. She is a fluent speaker of six languages and has worked with dozens of others.