Education
He graduated from the secondary school Corneille and the École Normale, where he became a professor of history in 1869.
anthropologist lexicographer linguist
He graduated from the secondary school Corneille and the École Normale, where he became a professor of history in 1869.
He was an expert on the Berber–Tuareg peoples of North Africa. In pursuit of an archaeological assignment, he began teaching at a high school in Algiers in 1872. In 1873 he began learning Arabic and several Berber languages and was interested in their philology and the social structures of Berber society.
Another interest was in archaeology, especially the Roman ruins of Aures.
(Algiers, A Jordan, 1890) The following year, he published "Comparaison du dialecte des Zenaga du Sénégal avec le vocabulaire des Chaïa et des Beni-M"zab" (a comparison of the Zenaga dialect of Senegal, which included a vocabulary of Chaia and Beni M"zab). Masqueray then taught history and African antiquity at the School of Arts in Algiers before being appointed the Paul Bert Director in 1878.
His work "Formation des Cités chez les populations sédentaires de l"Algérie" had a lasting influence in academia. He refuted the idea the colonial idea sedentary and nomadic lifestyles were associated with race and instead argued that these ways of life were determined by their environment.
Émile Masqueray also created the "Bulletin de correspondance africaine".
The cities of Rouen and Saint-Étienne-du-Rouvray have named streets after him.