Jean-Claude Corbeil

Corbeil was born in the Tétreaultville neighbourhood of Montreal[1] on 3 April 1932.[2][3] He attended Collège Sainte-Croix in his hometown.[2] He then studied at the Université de Montréal, earning a Bachelor of Arts in 1955 and a teaching degree one year later. Corbeil started working as a teacher at the end of that decade.[3] He subsequently undertook postgraduate studies at the University of Strasbourg, obtaining a doctorate in linguistics from that institution in 1966.[2][3] Two years later, he became a linguistics professor at the Université de Montréal.[1]

Corbeil co-hosted a radio show on Radio Canada called Langage de mon pays ("Language of my country") from 1968 to 1971, together with Henri Bergeron and Raymond Laplante.[2][3] He became linguistic director of the Office de la langue française du Québec starting in 1971. In that capacity, he advised the Government of Quebec on its language policy and played a key role in formulating laws such as the Official Language Act (1974) and the Charter of the French Language (1977).[2][4] He was therefore credited by fellow linguist Nadine Vincent with having "de-anglicized Quebec".[1] He quit as director in 1977 and took a sabbatical year. During this time, he authored L’aménagement linguistique du Québec, which was later published in 1980.[2]

Corbeil worked as secretary of the International Centre for Research and Studies in Fundamental and Applied Linguistics from 1980 to 1988.[1][5] Its goal was to facilitate cooperation between member states of the Agency of the Francophonie.[5] He was also a member of the International Scientific Committee of Linguamón.[6] He collaborated with Ariane Archambault to devise the first edition of Le Dictionnaire visuel in 1986. It was eventually sold in over 100 countries and translated into more than 35 languages.[4][7] Corbeil subsequently worked as an advisor to the president of the Council of the French Language in Quebec from 1988 to 1991,[1] after which he retired from the civil service.[2]

Despite his retirement, Corbeil was asked in 1995 by Louise Beaudoin – the minister responsible for the Charter of the French Language at the time – to write a policy statement for the provincial government concerning the renewal of the Charter.[1][2] It was titled Le français, langue commune: Promouvoir l’usage et la qualité du français, langue officielle et langue commune du Québec ("French, common language: Promoting the use and quality of French, official language and common language of Quebec").[2] He was subsequently appointed deputy minister overseeing Quebec's language policy, serving in that role until 2000.[1][2]

Corbeil was appointed an officer of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French Ministry of Culture in 2000.[1][2] He was then conferred the Prix Georges-Émile-Lapalme by the National Assembly of Quebec in November 2002, in recognition of the contributions he made to culture.[2] Three years later, he was invested as an officer of the National Order of Quebec.[5] He was subsequently awarded the Grande Médaille de la Francophonie in 2010.[1] Corbeil died on 25 January 2022, at the age of 89.[1][4][8]

• Les Structures Syntaxiques Du Francais Moderne (1968)[9]
• The Facts on File visual dictionary (1986) ISBN 978-0-8288-1926-8
• Scholastic visual dictionary (1990) ISBN 978-0-439-05940-4
• The Macmillan visual dictionary (1992) ISBN 978-0-02-528160-8
• Langues et sociétés en contact (1994) ISBN 978-3-484-56008-6
• The Firefly visual dictionary (2002) ISBN 978-1-55297-585-5
• The Firefly five language visual dictionary (2004) ISBN 978-1-55297-778-1
• Merriam-Webster's visual dictionary (2006) ISBN 978-0-87779-051-8