The linguist Pompeu Fabra i Poch (Gràcia, Barcelona 1868 – Prada de Conflent 1948) was the main driving force behind the modern standardized spelling of the Catalan language. As a technical student at the University of Barcelona (1886-90) he became involved in the group of young intellectuals around the journal L’Avenç who promoted cultural modernization and progressive Catalanism. They organized a campaign (1890-92) in favour of a functional grammatical and orthographic system which, by respecting the spoken language and eschewing Castilian influences, could become Catalonia’s national language. At the height of the campaign, in 1891, they published Fabra’s Ensayo de gramática de catalán moderno.

In the following years Fabra was highly active in the Catalan modernisme movement, continuing to define and broadcast his linguistic proposals. His second grammar, Contribució a la gramàtica de la llengua catalana, was published in 1898. In 1902 he moved to the Basque Country to teach chemistry at the Bilbao School of Engineers. He returned from Bilbao in 1912, summoned by Enric Prat de la Riba, president of the Provincial Council for Barcelona, to take charge of a chair of Catalan language and participate in the work of the Philological Section of the Institute of Catalan Studies.

The Philological Section published its Normes ortogràfiques in 1913, written mainly by Fabra. The reform work was completed with Diccionari ortogràfic (1917), Gramàtica catalana (1918) and Diccionari general de la llengua catalana (1932), all three of which were written exclusively by Fabra. Despite opposition by certain writers, Fabra’s proposals were widely accepted and endorsed by the 1914 autonomous government.

In the following years Fabra’s social prestige was such that during the dictatorship of Primo de Rivera his name began to become a symbol of linguistic and cultural resistance. During the Republic he was appointed president of the Autonomous University of Barcelona. After the Civil War he went into exile and, under great material and moral hardship, he continued to work for the Catalan language during his last years in Prada (his last grammar, finished in 1948, was published posthumously in 1956). In 1945 he was awarded an honorary degree by the University of Toulouse. When he died in 1948, his funeral became a symbol of Catalan unity in exile.