He attended Antoine Meillet's lectures at the Collège de France and the École pratique des hautes études.
He Studied Amharic (under Mondon-Vidailhet), French linguistics, Sanskrit, Ge'ez and South Arabian.
[1] Between March 1910 and June 1911, he undertook a journey to Ethiopia in which he collected much material on Ethiopian languages.
[2] He succeeded Mondon-Vidailhet, who had just died, as chargé de cours d'Abyssin at the École des langues orientales.
[4] He had several students who became distinguished éthiopisants, such as: Wolf Leslau, Stefan Strelcyn and Joseph Tubiana.