Background

Mario Andrew Pei was born on February 16, 1901 in Rome, Italy. He was the son of Francesco Pei and Luisa Ferri. His father owned and managed a pharmacy, the failure of which led to the family's immigration to the United States to settle in New York City in 1908.

Education

Having completed his first two years of schooling in Italy, Mario Pei entered parochial school in New York at the age of seven. Quickly becoming bilingual in English and the native Italian spoken at home, he proved himself an exemplary student at the Saint John Evangelist Elementary School. At age thirteen he won a scholarship to Saint Francis Xavier High School, where he excelled in Greek, Latin, and French. Upon graduation in 1918 Pei became a sixth-grade teacher at the Saint Francis Xavier Grammar School (1918 - 1920) and enrolled for evening courses in mathematics and sciences at the College of the City of New York. Pei spent most of the following year in Havana, Cuba, as private tutor to the nephews of President Mario García Menocal, primarily for English and French, during which time Pei became fluent in Spanish. He then revisited Italy on a grant from the Italian government. Upon his return to the United States in 1921, he resumed his studies at City College, shifting to a liberal arts major in French, and taught foreign languages at Regis High School (1921 - 1922), Fordham Preparatory School (1921), and the Franklin School (1922 - 1923).

Career

In 1923 Mario Andrew was invited to teach Latin and Romance languages at City College and at its prestigious preparatory school, Townsend Harris High School, a position he continued to hold until 1937. While holding simultaneous full-time high school and part-time college teaching positions, Pei pursued his undergraduate degree as a part-time evening student for seven years. He distinguished himself at City College, being elected to Phi Beta Kappa and receiving his B. A. degree magna cum laude in 1925. In the same year he was naturalized an American citizen. By this time Pei was dedicated to teaching and was thoroughly imbued with his passion for languages and philology. He embarked upon an ambitious study of world classics in the original Greek, Latin, French, Italian, and Spanish and began to work through German, Russian, and Hebrew texts and grammars.

In 1928, Pei began his formal graduate studies at Columbia University in ancient and medieval languages and literature, including Sanskrit, Old Church Slavonic, Gothic, Old French, and Medieval Romance dialects. He wrote and published his dissertation, The Language of the Eighth-Century Texts in Northern France, and was awarded the Ph. D. degree in Romance philology and comparative linguistics in 1932. The following year, Pei joined the faculty at Columbia University as a nontenured lecturer in French and was promoted in 1937 to assistant professor of Romance languages. In 1946 he was promoted to associate professor of Romance philology, with tenure, and in 1953 he became a full professor, a position he held until his retirement in 1969 as professor emeritus.

Pei also held special posts as a NATO lecturer at the universities of Lisbon and Coimbra in Portugal (1961); as a visiting professor at the University of Pittsburgh (1962 - 1963), Rutgers University (1963 - 1964), and Seton Hall University (1970 - 1972); and as a visiting lecturer at Brigham Young University (1970, 1972). Pei's writing career began in the mid-1920's with articles, editorials, and some translations for such popular periodicals as Il Progresso Italo-Americano, United America, and Atlantica. Beginning in the 1950's he contributed hundreds of articles to popular periodicals, including Town and Country, Holiday, the New York Times Magazine, Reader's Digest, Saturday Review, Saturday Evening Post, and a host of others in the United States and abroad.

At the invitation of a respected London publisher, Pei translated from Italian Vittorio Ermete de Fiori's biography of Benito Mussolini, Mussolini: The Man of Destiny (1928), which established Pei's reputation as a translator. He wrote, coauthored, translated, compiled, or edited more than fifty books. His dissertation, The Language of the Eighth-Century Texts in Northern France, published by Columbia in 1932, drew praise in Romance language circles worldwide. His intimate knowledge of Romance philology and early fascination with the medieval era led to French Precursors of the "Chanson de Roland" (1948) and the scholarly historical novel Swords of Anjou (1953), which was acclaimed both for its authentic recreation of Moorish Spain and medieval France as well as its readability and appeal to a modern audience. The Italian Language (1941) proved valuable for scholars and laymen alike as a reference work and textbook both in the Italian language and in comparative historical linguistics; it was revised and reprinted in 1954.

Mario Andrew Pei served also as associate editor of Romanic Review, Modern Language Journal, and Symposium and was on the editorial board of Romance Philology. The advent of World War II dramatically elevated once-isolationist America's interest in the languages and customs of foreign countries, which marked a turning point in Pei's writing career. He was called upon by the federal government to serve as a consultant and lecturer at the United States Army Language School in Monterey, Calif. ; to broadcast in French, Italian, German, Dutch, Czech, and Romanian for Radio Free Europe and Voice of America; to prepare English lessons for Spanish-speakers for broadcast in Latin America; and to work with the Office of War Information and the Office of Strategic Services on a number of war-related language projects.

Using his knowledge of several well-known and lesser-known languages, Pei created a utilitarian thirty-seven-language course called "War Linguistics, " out of which grew Languages for War and Peace (1943). The book, revised as The World's Chief Languages in 1947, served many years as a textbook and reference work of descriptive outlines of each of the languages included. It was further revised and reprinted in 1960. This seminal work led to Pei's pioneering efforts on behalf of a new branch of linguistics, geolinguistics, a term coined by one of his graduate students, Joseph Costanzo. In 1965, Pei founded the American Society of Geolinguistics in New York City, with the stated aim of gathering and disseminating up-to-date knowledge concerning the distribution and relative importance of the world's present-day languages in terms of their economic, political, and cultural value; their genetic, historical, and geographic relationships; and their current usage in spoken and written form. The growth of geolinguistic centers since 1965 has been significant in the United States and abroad.

Pei's concept of language as a cohesive force in the world and his vision of a linguistically, politically, and economically united global society of nations is evident in his books English: A World-Wide Tongue (1944); The American Road to Peace: A Constitution of the World (1945); and One Language for the World and How to Achieve It (1958); which Pei sent to heads of state throughout the world. The Story of Language (1949, rev. ed. 1965), by far the most widely read of his writings, reflects most strongly his belief that language is the unifying thread of civilization and that languageis the story of humanity. Pei's love for and comparative studies of English resulted in The Story of English (1952), which was revised and retitled The Story of the English Language in 1967.

Trained in historical and comparative philology and linguistics, Pei never espoused any school of modern linguistics. He did, however, remain abreast of the changes taking place in the field of linguistics and used his gift for simplification and clarification to narrow the gulf between the terminological creativity of linguists and intellectuals and newcomers to linguistics. A Dictionary of Linguistics (1954), revised as Glossary of Linguistic Terminology (1966), was written to bridge the gap between ongoing terminological coinages and the three previous works generally available to the American student of linguistics.

His Invitation to Linguistics: A Basic Introduction to the Science of Languages (1965) is an attempt to cut a broad, clear, central path through the developing jungle of intertwining terms and conflicting theories; to explain and clarify the two well-known branches of linguistics, historical (diachronic) and descriptive (synchronic); and to program the future of the newly founded branch of geolinguistics. Similarly, Language of the Specialists: A Communications Guide to Twenty Different Fields, written in collaboration with a team of specialists (1966); Language Today: A Survey of Current Linguistic Thought (1967), with Katherine Le Mée, Don L. F. Nilsen, and others; Words in Sheep's Clothing (1969); Double-Speak in America (1973); and Weasel Words: The Art of Saying What You Don't Mean (1978), which targets the proliferation of ambiguous euphemisms, are all attempts to build a bridge of reference resources to keep language comprehensible, useful, and functional as a tool of communication between the specialist and the nonspecialist.

. Pei's ongoing concern with sociopolitical issues was voiced in The American Road to Peace: A Constitution for the World (1945), a blueprint for ending all war and maintaining world peace; The Consumer's Manifesto (1960); Our National Heritage (1965); and The America We Lost: The Concerns of a Conservative (1968), to which William F. Buckley, Jr. , wrote the introduction. Pei's talent and merit as a teacher, mentor, and writer who had perfected to a fine art the transmission of his knowledge and his vision to posterity are amply documented in his considerable legacy of scholarly and popular publications, students who have served on the faculties of distinguished universities around the world, and a grateful and better-educated audience at large for whom he transformed the study of language from a formidable task into an engrossing pursuit. Pei died in Glen Ridge, New Jersey, where he was in active retirement on March 2, 1978.

Achievements

• Mario Andrew Pei was famous for his works which helped to provide the general public with a popular understanding of linguistics and philology.

Works

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  • Talking Your Way Around the World (English and Multilingual Edition)

    (Defines the principle elements and characteristics of sev...)

  • The Families of Words by Mario Andrew Pei (1962-06-03)
  • Words in Sheep's Clothing
  • The Story of Latin and the Romance Languages by Mario Andrew Pei (1976-03-01)

Connections

On June 25, 1924, Mario Andrew Pei married Pearl Glover of Oklahoma, a pianist who remained his lifelong companion. They had no children.

Father:

Francesco Pei

Mother:

Luisa Ferri Pei

Spouse:

Pearl Glover Pei