Born in
Torre Annunziata, De Mauro was the younger brother of the
journalist Mauro De Mauro, who was kidnapped and killed in September 1970, while investigating the
Sicilian Mafia. In 1963, De Mauro published the monumental ''
Storia linguistica dell'Italia unita ("Linguistic History of Unified Italy"). Two years later De Mauro published L'introduzione alla semantica ("Introduction to Semantics") and, in 1971, Senso e significato. After preparing the entries on semiotics of the Treccani encyclopedia and publishing the short volume Minisemantica'' (1982), De Mauro turned to the problem of language education. De Mauro was a professor at the
D'Annunzio University of Chieti–Pescara, and was director of the Department of Linguistic Science at the
University of Rome La Sapienza, where his students included the noted linguists
Gennaro Chierchia and
Anna Thornton. In 1975 he was elected to the Regional Council of Lazio in the lists of PCI. In 1976 he has been appointed commissioner for culture, position he held until 1978. He served as
Minister of Education during the second Government of Prime Minister Guliano Amato. From 2001 to 2010 he chaired digital world, the foundation of the city of Rome. His newspaper and magazine writing included: from 1956 to 1964 in the weekly
Il Mondo, from 1966 to 1979 in the newspaper
Paese Sera, and from 1981 to 1990 regular columns on schooling (1981–85) and language (1986 onward) in the weekly ''
L'Espresso. He made occasional contributions to L'Unità, La Stampa, La Repubblica, Il Manifesto, Il Sole-24 Ore, and Il Mattino''. He wrote a regular column for Internazionale under the rubrics "The word" starting in 2006 and "Schools" from 2008. From 1960 to 1973 he often appeared on radio and television
RAI, an activity he resumed in 1997-2000. From 1978 onward he also worked on various
RTSI (Swiss Italian Radio and Television) radio and TV broadcasts. == On Esperanto ==