UB Collection Jakob Jud

*Access on request at romanistik@ub.uzh.ch

The basis of the research library is the legacy of Prof. Dr. Jakob Jud, holder of the Chair of Romance Philology at the University of Zurich, who died in 1952.

The collection comprises about 22,000 items, with an additional 130 current journal titles and 500 sound recordings, and continues to grow. Special focus within Romance linguistics is on dialectology and linguistic geography (with a large collection of linguistic atlases), place-name studies, Old French, Old Occitan and Old Italian text collections, historical lexicography, and French-based creole languages.

An important field of research for Jakob Jud was Romance and pre-Romance etymology, which he saw as key to the history of language and settlement as well as to cultural and ecclesiastical history. In addition, Rhaeto-Romanic was one of his main areas of research.

He was vitally involved in the preparation of the "Dicziunari rumantsch grischun", the great Romansh dictionary, and supported the publication of the Rhaetian Name Book, a complete collection of the place and field names of the canton of Grisons.

He supported the fight for Romansh to be acknowledged as the fourth national language on the occasion of a referendum in 1938. His commitment to the "Vocabolario dei dialetti della Svizzera italiana" shows that the dialects of Italian-speaking Switzerland were also a subject close to his heart.