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]
In 1980, he co-founded with GRECE members Jean-Paul Allard [fr] 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]
Three-sky cosmological model proposed by J. Haudry[17][18]
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]
Haudry, Jean (1979). L'indo-européen. Presses universitaires de France. ISBN978-2-13-038370-3.
Haudry, Jean (1981). Les Indo-Européens. Presses universitaires de France. ISBN978-2-13-038371-0.
Haudry, Jean (1987). La religion cosmique des Indo-Européens. Archè. ISBN978-2-251-35352-4.
Haudry, Jean (2017). Le feu dans la tradition indo-européenne. Archè. ISBN978-88-7252-343-8.
References
^ abcdLincoln 1999, p. 121: "An excellent linguist, Haudry is also a member of the 'Scientific Council' of the National Front of Jean-Marie Le Pen. In his various writings, Haudry has sustained the old Nazi thesis that placed tile Indo-European homeland in the Arctic (i.e., the whitest, most Nordic place on earth) while also championing counterrevolution, and denouncing the proclamation of the 'Droits de l'homme' (4 August 1789) as the origin of modern decadence.
^Rocher, Rosane (1980). "Review of L'emploi des cas en védique: Introduction à l'étude des cas en indo-européen". Language. 56 (1): 192–194. doi:10.2307/412653. ISSN0097-8507. JSTOR412653. ... a clever if controversial book, the principal merit of which may ultimately lie in the rethinking and discussion which it is bound to stimulate.
^François, Stéphane (2 June 2023). "Jean Haudry et les études indo-européennes". Fragments sur les Temps Présents (in French). Retrieved 14 February 2024. chacune [des] religions [païennes] appartient en propre à la communauté ethnique et linguistique correspondante, qui, bien loin de chercher à convertir les étrangers, garde jalousement pour ses membres les bienfaits de sa religion.
^Jean Haudry, Les Indo-Européens, Paris, PUF, Que sais-je ?, 1981, p. 114-118
Bibliography
Duranton-Crabol, Anne-Marie (1988). Visages de la Nouvelle droite: le GRECE et son histoire. Presses de la Fondation nationale des sciences politiques. ISBN978-2-7246-0561-7.
Mallory, James P.; Adams, Douglas Q. (2006). The Oxford Introduction to Proto-Indo-European and the Proto-Indo-European World. Oxford University Press. ISBN978-0-19-929668-2.
