active 16th century Louis Meigret

Active in the mid-1500s, Louis Meigret was a French scholar known for his work on grammar and orthography. He is often noted for publishing in 1550 one of the first major grammars devoted to the French language, at a time when French was still being shaped as a literary and scholarly language.

Meigret became especially known for arguing that spelling should reflect pronunciation more closely. He proposed a more phonetic system and even introduced new symbols in an effort to simplify written French. Those ideas made him an important early voice in debates about how French should be written.

His reforms were controversial, and he took part in lively disputes with other writers of his time, including Jacques Peletier du Mans and Guillaume des Autels. Even though his spelling system did not win out, his work remains an important part of the history of French grammar and language reform.