Question: please translate this french word to english, "saussurianism "  its in a book about history of french lang ... 

Answer: I believe that refers to Ferdinand Saussure, the linguist who developed the theory of laryngeals in common Indo-European phonetics (ancestor to most European, north Indian, Iranian languages). It was a controversial theory for a long time, proposing a sound that no longer exists in any of the modern Indo-European languages. Saussurianism, I guess, is a school of thought on Indo-European phonology.
This question from the Yahoo Q&A forum is categorized in the topic: Family & Relationships