Jean Gagnepain (November 16, 1923 – January 3, 2006) was a French linguist and anthropologist.
After obtaining an Agrégation in grammar, he carried on his study of language under the direction of Joseph Vendryes.
He went to Dublin for about ten years to study celtic languages and concluded his stay in Ireland by defending a PhD thesis, in 1957, at the Faculty of Letters of the University of Paris, on the syntax of the verbal noun in celtic languages.
There, he met professor Olivier Sabouraud, a neurologist from the Faculty of Medicine, for a time chairman of the Department of Neurology of the University Hospital Rennes Pontchaillou.
[4] His views on aphasia have given way to studies on grammatical impairment[5] and even computer-software assessment and rehabilitation of brain-damaged patients.