Jean Haudry (28 May 1934 – 23 May 2023) was a French linguist and Indo-Europeanist. Haudry was generally regarded as a distinguished linguist by other scholars,[1][2] although he was also criticized for his political proximity with the far-right.[1] Haudry's L'Indo-Européen, published in 1979, remains the reference introduction to the Proto-Indo-European language written in French.[3]
Jean Haudry | |
|---|---|
| Born | 28 May 1934 Le Perreux-sur-Marne, France |
| Died | 23 May 2023 (aged 88) |
| Occupations | |
Biography
Jean Haudry was born on 28 May 1934 in Le Perreux-sur-Marne in the eastern suburbs of Paris.[4] He became agrégé in grammar studies at the École Normale Supérieure in 1959[5] and earned a PhD in linguistics in 1975 after a thesis on Vedic Sanskrit grammatical cases.[6]
Haudry was a member of the Institute of Formation of the Front National (FN) of Jean-Marie Le Pen.[7] He also served in the Scientific Council of the FN until the late 1990s[1] when he decided to follow Bruno Mégret and his splinter party Mouvement National Républicain.[8]
In 1980, he co-founded with GRECE members Jean-Paul Allard and Jean Varenne the "Institute of Indo-European Studies" (IEIE) at the Jean Moulin University Lyon 3.[9] Under his leadership between 1982 and 1998, the IEIE published the journal Études indo-européennes. He was a professor of Sanskrit and dean of the faculty of letters at the University Lyon 3 and a directeur d'études at the 4th section of the École Pratique des Hautes Études. He became professor emeritus in 2002.[10]
Haudry practiced a version of modern paganism that put heavy emphasis on ethnicity. He described this paganism: "each [pagan] religion belongs specifically to the corresponding ethnic and linguistic community, which, far from seeking to convert foreigners, jealously guards the benefits of its religion for its members".[11] In 1995, he participated in the founding of the nativist movement Terre et Peuple, along with Pierre Vial and Jean Mabire, and served as its vice president.[12][13]
Soon after Haudry's retirement, the French Ministry of Education appointed a commission to investigate whether Haudry's institute was too closely associated with the far-right. The work of the commission was mooted when Haudry's successor, Jean-Paul Allard, dissolved the institute and reconstituted it as an association free from state supervision.[14]
He was a director of the Association of French Friends of South African Communities.[15]
Haudry died on 23 May 2023, five days before his 89th birthday.[16]
Indo-European studies
Three-sky model
In his most important work on comparative mythology, La Religion cosmique des Indo-Européens (1987; "The Cosmic Religion of Indo-Europeans"), Haudry argued that Proto-Indo-European cosmogony featured three 'skies' (diurnal, nocturnal and liminal) each having its own set of deities and colours (white, red, and dark).[17] The proposition is often mentioned in handbooks,[17][18] although it has been criticized by some scholars as an "overinterpretation" of available data.[19][20]
| Realm | Theme | Deities | Colour |
|---|---|---|---|
| Day | Celestial | "Daylight-sky god" (*Dyēus) | white |
| Dawn/twilight | Bridging | "Binder-god" (Kronos, Savitṛ, Saturnus) | red |
| Night | Night Spirits | "Night-sky god" (Ouranos) | dark |
Thought, word, action
In Haudry's 2009 essay entitled The Triad: thought, word, action, in the Indo-European tradition, he stated that the formula "thought, word, action" had a wide distribution in all of the ancient literatures of Indo-European languages in antiquity.[21][22]
According to Haudry, there is a connection between the triad of "thought, word, action" and fire or light. He said that the presence of "divine fires" is in several Indo-European mythologies, such as the figure of Loki in Norse mythology.[22][23]
For Alberto De Antoni, this study, which is "very scholarly and elaborate from a linguistic point of view, with an extensive bibliography and a critical apparatus", allows Haudry, thanks to the multiplicity of sources within the Indo-European world and due to Haudry's "excellent linguistic expertise" to reconstitute the verbs and nouns of the triadic formula.[24]
Arctic hypothesis
Haudry supported the Arctic hypothesis of the origin of Indo-Europeans.[1] However, he believed that the Kurgan culture was probably the center of diffusion.[25]
Works
- Haudry, Jean (1979). L'indo-européen. Presses universitaires de France. ISBN 978-2-13-038370-3.
- Haudry, Jean (1981). Les Indo-Européens. Presses universitaires de France. ISBN 978-2-13-038371-0.
- Haudry, Jean (1987). La religion cosmique des Indo-Européens. Archè. ISBN 978-2-251-35352-4.
- Haudry, Jean (2017). Le feu dans la tradition indo-européenne. Archè. ISBN 978-88-7252-343-8.
References
Bibliography
