* Manu and * Yemo are thought to have been a duo in Proto-Indo-European mythology . In the creation myth, Manu kills Yemo as a foundational part of the origin of the universe. Yemo is sometimes also interpreted as a primordial hermaphrodite.
144-504: The comparative analysis of different Indo-European tales has led scholars to reconstruct an original Proto-Indo-European creation myth involving twin brothers, * Mónus ('Man') and * YémHos ('Twin'), as the progenitors of the world and mankind, and a hero named * Trito ('Third') who ensured the continuity of the original sacrifice. Although some thematic parallels can be made with Ancient Near East (the primordial couple Adam and Eve ), and even Polynesian or South American legends,
288-424: A Proto-Baltic related pair, possibly named Jumis ('twin') and Viras ('male, hero'). He saw a connection with quasi-historical Prussian king Widewuto and his brother Bruteno. Related to them is a pair of figures named Wirschaitos and Szwaybrutto (Iszwambrato, Schneybrato, Schnejbrato, Snejbrato), which he interprets as 'Elder' and 'His Brother', respectively. These latter two would, in turn, be connected to
432-559: A where the other languages also have a , and French k occurs elsewhere, the difference is caused by different environments (being before a conditions the change), and the sets are complementary. They can, therefore, be assumed to reflect a single proto-phoneme (in this case *k , spelled ⟨c⟩ in Latin ). The original Latin words are corpus , crudus , catena and captiare , all with an initial k . If more evidence along those lines were given, one might conclude that an alteration of
576-480: A "regular correspondence" between k in Hawaiian and t in the other Polynesian languages. Similarly, a regular correspondence can be seen between Hawaiian and Rapanui h , Tongan and Samoan f , Maori ɸ , and Rarotongan ʔ . Mere phonetic similarity, as between English day and Latin dies (both with the same meaning), has no probative value. English initial d- does not regularly match Latin d- since
720-548: A cautiously ambiguous relation" with Nouvelle Droite figures like de Benoist and Haudry, "both of whom courted him avidly". During the 1930s, Dumézil supported the far-right, royalist, anti-democratic, and anti-German Action Française. While he held for a while Benito Mussolini in high regard, he steadfastly opposed Nazism and voiced as a journalist his opposition to the growing danger posed by German nationalism. However, Dumézil never joined Action Française, contending that "too many things separated [him] from them. The credo of
864-449: A compound in personal names of the historical Persepolis Administrative Archives , such as Yamakka and Yamakšedda (from Old Persian * Yama-xšaita- 'majestic Yama', modern Jamshid ). Nuristani deity Imra is also considered a reflex of Indo-Iranian Yama. The name Imra is thought to derive from * Yama-raja 'King Yama', a name possibly cognate to the Bangani title Jim Raza 'god of
1008-431: A different cluster must be reconstructed for each set. His reconstructions were, respectively, *hk , *xk , *čk (= [t͡ʃk] ), *šk (= [ʃk] ), and çk (in which ' x ' and ' ç ' are arbitrary symbols, rather than attempts to guess the phonetic value of the proto-phonemes). Typology assists in deciding what reconstruction best fits the data. For example, the voicing of voiceless stops between vowels
1152-417: A large set of English and Latin non-borrowed cognates cannot be assembled such that English d repeatedly and consistently corresponds to Latin d at the beginning of a word, and whatever sporadic matches can be observed are due either to chance (as in the above example) or to borrowing (for example, Latin diabolus and English devil , both ultimately of Greek origin ). However, English and Latin exhibit
1296-406: A linguist might attempt to investigate the possibilities that either what was earlier reconstructed as *b is in fact *m or that the *n and *ŋ are in fact *d and *g . Even a symmetrical system can be typologically suspicious. For example, here is the traditional Proto-Indo-European stop inventory: An earlier voiceless aspirated row was removed on grounds of insufficient evidence. Since
1440-736: A memoir, believing that the legacy of his work should stand on its scholarly merits alone. However, shortly before his death, Dumézil made a series of in-depth interviews with his defender Eribon, which were subsequently published in Entretiens avec Georges Dumézil (1987). This book remains the closest Dumézil ever came to writing a memoir. Upon his death, Dumézil left a number of unfishined works on Indo-European mythology, some of which were subsequently edited by his friends and published. Accusations of Fascist sympathies continued after Dumézil's death. Eribon's Faut-il brûler Dumézil? (1992) has been credited with permanently debunking accusations that Dumézil
1584-491: A non-distinctive quality of both. That example of the application of linguistic typology to linguistic reconstruction has become known as the glottalic theory . It has a large number of proponents but is not generally accepted. The reconstruction of proto-sounds logically precedes the reconstruction of grammatical morphemes (word-forming affixes and inflectional endings), patterns of declension and conjugation and so on. The full reconstruction of an unrecorded protolanguage
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#17328453685501728-441: A plan, in setting immediately before the eyes of the student the final results of the investigation in a more concrete form, and thereby rendering easier his insight into the nature of particular Indo-European languages , there is, I think, another of no less importance gained by it, namely that it shows the baselessness of the assumption that the non-Indian Indo-European languages were derived from Old-Indian ( Sanskrit ). The aim of
1872-720: A position in France, and encouraged him to move abroad. From 1925 to 1931, Dumézil was Professor of the History of Religions at Istanbul University . During his years in Istanbul, Dumézil acquired proficiency in Armenian and Ossetian , and many non-Indo-European languages of the Caucasus . This enabled him to study the Nart saga , on which he published a number of influential monographs . Dumézil developed
2016-408: A regular correspondence of t- : d- (in which "A : B" means "A corresponds to B"), as in the following examples: If there are many regular correspondence sets of this kind (the more, the better), a common origin becomes a virtual certainty, particularly if some of the correspondences are non-trivial or unusual. During the late 18th to late 19th century, two major developments improved
2160-407: A rigorous methodology for historical linguistic comparisons and proposed the existence of an Indo-European proto-language, which he called "Scythian", unrelated to Hebrew but ancestral to Germanic, Greek, Romance, Persian, Sanskrit, Slavic, Celtic and Baltic languages. The Scythian theory was further developed by Andreas Jäger (1686) and William Wotton (1713), who made early forays to reconstruct
2304-415: A single original phoneme : "some sound changes, particularly conditioned sound changes, can result in a proto-sound being associated with more than one correspondence set". For example, the following potential cognate list can be established for Romance languages , which descend from Latin : They evidence two correspondence sets, k : k and k : ʃ : Since French ʃ occurs only before
2448-413: A single parent language called the ' proto-language '. A sequence of regular sound changes (along with their underlying sound laws) can then be postulated to explain the correspondences between the attested forms, which eventually allows for the reconstruction of a proto-language by the methodical comparison of "linguistic facts" within a generalized system of correspondences. Every linguistic fact
2592-695: A strong interest in the Ossetians and their mythology , which was to prove indispensable for his future research. For the rest of his life, Dumézil would make yearly visits to Istanbul to conduct field research among Ossetians in Turkey . During this time he also published his Le problème des centaures (1929), which examined similarities in Greek and Indo-Iranian. It was inspired by Elard Hugo Meyer . Together with Le festin d'immortalité (1924) and Le crime des Lemniennes (1924), Le problème des centaures would form part of
2736-502: A subgroup of Indo-European that Russian does not belong to, the Germanic languages . The division of related languages into subgroups is accomplished by finding shared linguistic innovations that differentiate them from the parent language. For instance, English and German both exhibit the effects of a collection of sound changes known as Grimm's Law , which Russian was not affected by. The fact that English and German share this innovation
2880-651: A trifunctional hierarchy respectively composed of priests, warriors and producers. In Dumézil's trifunctional model, the priests were responsible for the "maintenance of cosmic and juridical sovereignty", while warriors were tasked with the "exercise of physical prowess", and the commoners were responsible for "the promotion of physical well-being, fertility, wealth, and so on". In Norse mythology , these functions were according to Dumézil represented by Týr and Odin , Thor , and Njörðr and Freyr , while in Vedic mythology, they were represented by Varuna and Mitra , Indra , and
3024-477: A twin brother of Manu, both forming indeed a pair of complementary beings entwined together. The Germanic names Ymir and Tuisto were understood as 'twin', 'bisexual', or 'hermaphrodite', and some myths give a sister to the Vedic Yama, called Yamī (also 'Twin'). The primordial being may therefore have self-sacrificed, or have been divided in two, a male half and a female half, embodying a prototypal separation of
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#17328453685503168-616: A visiting professor at UCLA in 1971. He was elected to the highly prestigious Académie Française in 1975. His election to Académie Française was sponsored by Lévi-Strauss, who gave him the welcoming address. Dumézil was also an Associate Member of the Royal Academy of Science, Letters and Fine Arts of Belgium , Corresponding Member of the Austrian Academy of Sciences , Honorary Member of the Royal Irish Academy , Honorary Fellow of
3312-460: Is also considered a Latvian chthonic deity that lived "beneath the plowed field". Later Iranian tradition ( Pahlavi ) attests a brother–sister pair named Jima (Yima) and Jimak (Yimak). Yimak, or Jamag, is described as Yima's twin sister in the Bundahishn , from Central Iran. Yima consorts with his sister Yimak to produce humankind, but is later killed by Azi Dahaka. The name Yama is attested as
3456-507: Is also considered a cognate to Indo-Iranian Yama , and related to Sanskrit yamala 'in pairs, twice' and Prakrit yamala 'twins'. Ranko Matasović cites the existence of Jumala as a female counterpart and sister of Jumis in Latvian dainas (folksongs), as another fertility deity, and in the same vein, Zmago Smitek mentioned the pair as having "pronounced vegetational characteristics". Jumis, whose name can also mean 'double ear of wheat',
3600-538: Is an open-ended task. Georges Dum%C3%A9zil Georges Edmond Raoul Dumézil (4 March 1898 – 11 October 1986) was a French philologist , linguist , and religious studies scholar who specialized in comparative linguistics and mythology . He was a professor at Istanbul University , École pratique des hautes études and the Collège de France , and a member of the Académie Française . Dumézil
3744-458: Is based on their concepts of how to proceed. This step involves making lists of words that are likely cognates among the languages being compared. If there is a regularly-recurring match between the phonetic structure of basic words with similar meanings, a genetic kinship can probably then be established. For example, linguists looking at the Polynesian family might come up with a list similar to
3888-417: Is common, but the devoicing of voiced stops in that environment is rare. If a correspondence -t- : -d- between vowels is found in two languages, the proto- phoneme is more likely to be *-t- , with a development to the voiced form in the second language. The opposite reconstruction would represent a rare type. However, unusual sound changes occur. The Proto-Indo-European word for two , for example,
4032-557: Is credited with having saved the Ubykh language from extinction. His magnum opus , Mythe et epopee , provides a thorough overview of the trifunctional ideology of Indo-European mythology, and was published in three volumes in (1968–1973). In 1974, Dumézil would earn the Prix Paul Valery for this work. Dumézil research has been credited with being largely responsible for the revival of Indo-European studies and comparative mythology in
4176-497: Is defined as transmission across the generations: children learn a language from the parents' generation and, after being influenced by their peers, transmit it to the next generation, and so on. For example, a continuous chain of speakers across the centuries links Vulgar Latin to all of its modern descendants. Two languages are genetically related if they descended from the same ancestor language . For example, Italian and French both come from Latin and therefore belong to
4320-485: Is not considered "related" to Arabic. However, it is possible for languages to have different degrees of relatedness. English , for example, is related to both German and Russian but is more closely related to the former than to the latter. Although all three languages share a common ancestor, Proto-Indo-European , English and German also share a more recent common ancestor, Proto-Germanic , but Russian does not. Therefore, English and German are considered to belong to
4464-420: Is part of a whole in which everything is connected to everything else. One detail must not be linked to another detail, but one linguistic system to another. Relation is considered to be "established beyond a reasonable doubt" if a reconstruction of the common ancestor is feasible. The ultimate proof of genetic relationship, and to many linguists' minds the only real proof, lies in a successful reconstruction of
*Manu and *Yemo - Misplaced Pages Continue
4608-702: Is reconstructed as *dwō , which is reflected in Classical Armenian as erku . Several other cognates demonstrate a regular change *dw- → erk- in Armenian. Similarly, in Bearlake, a dialect of the Athabaskan language of Slavey , there has been a sound change of Proto-Athabaskan *ts → Bearlake kʷ . It is very unlikely that *dw- changed directly into erk- and *ts into kʷ , but they probably instead went through several intermediate steps before they arrived at
4752-419: Is seen as evidence of English and German's more recent common ancestor—since the innovation actually took place within that common ancestor, before English and German diverged into separate languages. On the other hand, shared retentions from the parent language are not sufficient evidence of a sub-group. For example, German and Russian both retain from Proto-Indo-European a contrast between the dative case and
4896-531: Is supported by a number of scholars such as Jaan Puhvel , J. P. Mallory , Douglas Q. Adams , David W. Anthony , and, in part, Martin L. West . Although some thematic parallels can be made with traditions of the Ancient Near East (the twins Abel and Cain and their brother Seth ), and even Polynesian or South American legends, Lincoln argues that the linguistic correspondences found in descendant cognates of * Manu and * Yemo make it very likely that
5040-563: Is well known for his formulation of the trifunctional hypothesis on Proto-Indo-European mythology and society . His research has had a major influence on the fields of comparative mythology and Indo-European studies . Georges Dumézil was born in Paris, France, on 4 March 1898, the son of Jean Anatole Jean Dumézil and Marguerite Dutier. His father was a highly educated general in the French Army . Dumézil received an elite education in Paris at
5184-545: The Rigveda as the first sacrificer and the founder of religious law, the Law of Mánu . He is the brother (or half-brother) of Yama ('Twin'), both presented as the sons of the solar deity Vivasvat . The association of Mánu with the ritual of sacrifice is so strong that those who do not sacrifice are named amanuṣāḥ , which means 'not belonging to Mánu', 'unlike Mánu', or 'inhuman'. The Song of Puruṣa (another word meaning 'man') tells how
5328-504: The Aśvins . Dumézil's trifunctional hypothesis would come to revolutionize modern research on ancient civilizations. In the prelude to World War II, Dumézil returned to military service as a captain of the reserves in the French Army . He was subsequently posted at Liège as a liaison officer with the Belgian Army . Through the assistance of Maxime Weygand , a friend of his father, Dumézil
5472-514: The Dumézilian tripartition of the cosmos between the priest (in both his magical and legal aspects), the warrior (the third man), and the herder (the cow). The story of Trito served as a model for later epic myths about cattle raiding and most likely as a moral justification for the practice of raiding among Indo-European peoples. In the original legend, Trito is only taking back what rightfully belongs to his people, those who sacrifice properly to
5616-557: The Gothick and the Celtick , though blended with a very different idiom, had the same origin with the Sanscrit; and the old Persian might be added to the same family. The comparative method developed out of attempts to reconstruct the proto-language mentioned by Jones, which he did not name but subsequent linguists have labelled Proto-Indo-European (PIE). The first professional comparison between
5760-643: The Grande Loge de France , a pro-Jewish masonic lodge, for which he would later be persecuted by the Nazis. In the late 1930s, Dumézil broadened his research to include the study of Germanic religion. His research on Germanic religion was greatly influenced by the renowned Dutch philologist Jan de Vries , and also by Höfler. It was while lecturing on the Indo-European component in Germanic religion at Uppsala University in
5904-531: The Indo-European languages that were then known was made by the German linguist Franz Bopp in 1816. He did not attempt a reconstruction but demonstrated that Greek, Latin and Sanskrit shared a common structure and a common lexicon. In 1808, Friedrich Schlegel first stated the importance of using the eldest possible form of a language when trying to prove its relationships; in 1818, Rasmus Christian Rask developed
*Manu and *Yemo - Misplaced Pages Continue
6048-669: The Indo-European migrations . The Greek, Old Russian ( Poem on the Dove King ) and Jewish versions depend on the Iranian, and a Chinese version of the myth has been introduced from Ancient India. The Armenian version of the myth of the First Warrior Trito depends on the Iranian, and the Roman reflexes were influenced by earlier Greek versions. Baltic mythology records a fertility deity Jumis , whose name means 'pair, double (of fruits)'. His name
6192-541: The Indo-European migrations . The Greek, Old Russian ( Poem on the Dove King ), and Jewish versions depend on the Iranian, and a Chinese version of the myth has been introduced from Ancient India. The Armenian version of the myth of the First Warrior Trito depends on the Iranian, and the Roman reflexes were influenced by earlier Greek versions. Cognates deriving from the Proto-Indo-European First Priest * Manu (' Man ', 'ancestor of humankind') include
6336-453: The Latin , and more exquisitely refined than either, yet bearing to both of them a stronger affinity, both in the roots of verbs and the forms of grammar, than could possibly have been produced by accident; so strong indeed, that no philologer could examine them all three, without believing them to have sprung from some common source, which, perhaps, no longer exists. There is a similar reason, though not quite so forcible, for supposing that both
6480-643: The Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland , and the recipient of honorary doctorates from the universities of Uppsala, Istanbul, Berne and Liège . He was an Officer of the Legion of Honor . In the 1970s and 1980s, Dumézil vigorously continued with research and publishing, and devoted himself particularly to the study of the Indo-European components in Ossetian and Scythian mythology . The much awaited third edition of his Mitra-Varuna
6624-517: The Scythians , maintained a caste system which had been established before the Indo-Iranian migrations into South Asia. This article eventually caught the attention of French linguist Émile Benveniste , with whom Dumézil entered a fruitful correspondence. From 1931 to 1933, Dumézil taught French at Uppsala University . Here he became acquainted with the influential professor Henrik Samuel Nyberg and
6768-469: The University of Warsaw in 1920–1921. While lecturing at Warsaw, Dumézil was struck by striking similarities between Sanskrit literature and the works of Ovid , which suggested to him that these pieces of literature contained traces of a common Indo-European heritage. Dumézil gained his PhD in comparative religion in 1924 with the thesis Le festin d'immortalité . Inspired by the works of Ernst Kuhn ,
6912-451: The accusative case , which English has lost. However, that similarity between German and Russian is not evidence that German is more closely related to Russian than to English but means only that the innovation in question, the loss of the accusative/dative distinction, happened more recently in English than the divergence of English from German. In classical antiquity , Romans were aware of
7056-941: The "exposure" of Dumézil's alleged political Fascist sympathies may lead to the abolishment (" Ragnarök ") of the concept of Indo-European mythology . Throughout his career, Dumézil published more than seventy-five books and hundreds of scholarly articles. His research continues to have a strong influence among Indo-Europeanists, classicists , Celticists , Germanicists , and Indologists. Prominent scholars heavily influenced by Dumézil include Emile Benveniste, Stig Wikander, Jan de Vries, Gabriel Turville-Petre , Werner Betz , Edgar C. Polomé, Jaan Puvhvel, Joël Grisward , Nicholas Allen , Georges Charachidzé , François-Xavier Dillmann , Jacques Duchesne-Guillemin , Daniel Dubuisson [ fr ] , Lucien Gerschel , Emily Lyle , Dean A. Miller, Alwyn Rees , Brinley Rees , Robert Schilling , Bernard Sergent , Udo Strutynski , Donald J. Ward and Atsuhiko Yoshida . Along with Marija Gimbutas ,
7200-599: The 1930s. They also accused Dumézil's trifunctional hypothesis of similarity with Fascism, and wrote that his reconstruction of Indo-European society was motivated by a desire to abolish " Judeo-Christian " values. Momigliano had himself been a member of the National Fascist Party in the 1930s, but was not open about this. Dumézil was also defended by many colleagues, including C. Scott Littleton, Jaan Puhvel, Edgar C. Polomé , Dean A. Miller, Udo Strutynski, and most notably by Didier Eribon . Polomé and Miller saw
7344-458: The 9th or 10th century AD, Yehuda Ibn Quraysh compared the phonology and morphology of Hebrew, Aramaic and Arabic but attributed the resemblance to the Biblical story of Babel, with Abraham, Isaac and Joseph retaining Adam's language, with other languages at various removes becoming more altered from the original Hebrew. In publications of 1647 and 1654, Marcus Zuerius van Boxhorn first described
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#17328453685507488-777: The Action Française was a block: it forbade both appreciating Edmond Rostand and believing in the innocence of Captain Dreyfus ." Furthermore, Dumézil joined the Free Masonry in the early 1930s as a member of the Portique lodge of the Grande Loge de France of the Scottish Rite , and was consequently dismissed from his teaching positions and from the civil service by the collaborationist Vichy State during World War II. Some critics, particularly adherents of Lévi-Strauss, contended that
7632-567: The Collège de Neufchâteau, Lycée de Troyes, Lycée Louis-le-Grand and Lycée de Tarbes. He came to master Ancient Greek and Latin at an early age. Through the influence of Michel Bréal , who was a student of Franz Bopp and the grandfather of one of Dumézil's friends, Dumézil came to master Sanskrit , and developed a strong interest in Indo-European mythology and religion . He began studying at École normale supérieure (ENS) in 1916. During World War I , Dumézil served as an artillery officer in
7776-515: The Commoner. The saga ends with the real dismemberment of Yima by his own brother, the daiwic figure Spityura. In another myth of the Younger Avesta , the primal man Gayōmart ( Gaya marətan ; 'Mortal Life') and the primeval world ox Gōšūrvan are sacrificed by the destructive spirit Ahriman ( Aŋra Mainyu , 'Evil Spirit'). From the ox's parts came all the plants and animals, and from Gayōmart's body
7920-572: The French Army, for which he received the Croix de Guerre . His father was inspector-general of the French artillery corps during the war. Dumézil returned to his studies at ENS in 1919. His most important teacher there was Antoine Meillet , who gave him a rigorous introduction in Iranian and Indo-European linguistics . Meillet was to have a great influence on Dumézil. Unlike other students of Meillet, Dumézil
8064-753: The Indic Mánu , legendary first man in Hinduism , and Manāvī, his sacrificed wife; the Germanic Mannus ( Proto-Germanic * Manwaz ), mythical ancestor of the West Germanic tribes ; and the Persian Manūščihr (from Avestan Manūš.čiθra , 'son of Manuš'), Zoroastrian high priest of the 9th century AD. From the name of the sacrificed First King * Yemo ('Twin') derive the Indic Yama , god of death and
8208-644: The Norse Þriði ('Third'), one of the names of Óðinn . Other cognates may appear in the Greek expressions trítos sōtḗr ( τρίτος σωτήρ ; 'third saviour'), an epithet of Zeus , and tritogḗneia ( τριτογήνεια , 'third born' or 'born of Zeus'), an epithet of Athena ; and perhaps in the Slavic mythical hero Troyan , found in Russian and Serbian legends alike. Many Indo-European beliefs explain aspects of human anatomy from
8352-555: The United States by scholars such as Jaan Puhvel , C. Scott Littleton , Donald J. Ward , Udo Strutynski and Dean A. Miller . Many of these scholars were associated with the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). Dumézil was made an Honorary Professor of the College de France in 1969, and became a Member of the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres in 1970. Dumézil was
8496-443: The ancestral forms from which the semantically corresponding cognates can be derived. In some cases, this reconstruction can only be partial, generally because the compared languages are too scarcely attested, the temporal distance between them and their proto-language is too deep, or their internal evolution render many of the sound laws obscure to researchers. In such case, a relation is considered plausible, but uncertain. Descent
8640-580: The application of the comparative method to reconstruct Proto-Indo-European since Indo-European was then by far the most well-studied language family. Linguists working with other families soon followed suit, and the comparative method quickly became the established method for uncovering linguistic relationships. There is no fixed set of steps to be followed in the application of the comparative method, but some steps are suggested by Lyle Campbell and Terry Crowley , who are both authors of introductory texts in historical linguistics. This abbreviated summary
8784-507: The assistance of Sylvain Lévi , a friend of Meillet, was able to gain a position at the École pratique des hautes études (EPHE). From 1935 to 1968, Dumézil was Director of Studies at the Department of Comparative Religion at EPHE. In this capacity he was responsible for teaching and research on Indo-European religions. Students of Dumézil during this time include Roger Caillois . At EPHE, through
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#17328453685508928-487: The balance of the cosmos ruled by the original sacrifice. In the Indo-Iranian version of the myth, his brother Manu also sacrifices the cow, and from the parts of the dead animal are born the other living species and vegetables. In the European reflexes, however, the cow (represented by a she-wolf in the Roman myth) serves only as a provider of milk and care for the twins before the creation. This divergence may be explained by
9072-478: The best introductory work on Dumézil's core ideas. Dumézil retired from teaching in 1968, but nevertheless continued a vigorous program of research and writing which continued until his death. He would eventually become proficient in more than 40 languages, including all branches of the Indo-European languages , most languages of the Caucasus, and indigenous languages of the Americas (most notably Quechuan ). Dumézil
9216-551: The body parts of the sacrificed primeval man led to the creation of the cosmos (the heaven from his head, the air from his navel, the earth from his legs) and the Hindu castes (the upper parts becoming the upper castes and the lower parts the commoners). In the later Śatapatha Brāhmana , both a primordial bull and Mánu's wife Manāvī are sacrificed by the Asuras (demi-gods). According to Lincoln, this could represent an independent variant of
9360-424: The change, the accent shifted to initial position. Verner solved the puzzle by comparing the Germanic voicing pattern with Greek and Sanskrit accent patterns. This stage of the comparative method, therefore, involves examining the correspondence sets discovered in step 2 and seeing which of them apply only in certain contexts. If two (or more) sets apply in complementary distribution , they can be assumed to reflect
9504-477: The comparative method is to highlight and interpret systematic phonological and semantic correspondences between two or more attested languages . If those correspondences cannot be rationally explained as the result of linguistic universals or language contact ( borrowings , areal influence , etc.), and if they are sufficiently numerous, regular, and systematic that they cannot be dismissed as chance similarities , then it must be assumed that they descend from
9648-446: The creator of humankind. In pre-Zoroastrian Iran, Yima was seen as the first king and first mortal. The original myth of creation was indeed condemned by Zarathustra , who makes mention of it in the Avesta when talking about the two spirits that "appeared in the beginning as two twins in a dream ... (and) who first met and instituted life and non-life". Yima in particular is depicted as
9792-555: The criticism of Dumézil as an expression of political correctness and Marxist ideology, and questioned the scholarly credentials of the critics. Dumézil himself responded vigorously to these accusations, pointing out that he had never been a member of a Fascist organization, never been sympathetic to Fascist ideology, and that the ancient Indo-European hierarchical social structure never appealed to him. In order to clarify his political position, he declared to Éribon in 1987: "the principle, not simply monarchical, but dynastic, which protects
9936-446: The cultural differences between the Indo-Iranian and European branches of the Indo-European family, with the former still strongly influenced by pastoralism , and the latter much more agricultural, perceiving the cow mainly as a source of milk. According to Lincoln, the Indo-Iranian version best preserves the ancestral motif, since they lived closer to the original Proto-Indo-European pastoral way of life. Mánu ('Man, human') appears in
10080-415: The dead'. He is also known as Mara "Killer, Death". This name may have left traces in other Nuristani languages : Waigali Yamrai , Kalash (Urtsun) imbro , Ashkun im'ra , Prasun yumr'a and Kati im'ro – all referring to a "creator god". This deity also acts as the guardian to the gates of hell (located in a subterranean realm), preventing the return to the world of the living – a motif that echoes
10224-470: The development *b → m would have to be assumed to have occurred only once. In the final step, the linguist checks to see how the proto- phonemes fit the known typological constraints . For example, a hypothetical system, has only one voiced stop , *b , and although it has an alveolar and a velar nasal , *n and *ŋ , there is no corresponding labial nasal . However, languages generally maintain symmetry in their phonemic inventories. In this case,
10368-517: The early 19th century with the birth of Indo-European studies , then took a definite scientific approach with the works of the Neogrammarians in the late 19th–early 20th century. Key contributions were made by the Danish scholars Rasmus Rask (1787–1832) and Karl Verner (1846–1896), and the German scholar Jacob Grimm (1785–1863). The first linguist to offer reconstructed forms from a proto-language
10512-563: The epic and puranic traditions. Some scholars have equated this abandonment (or transcendence) of his own body with the sacrifice of Puruṣa . In a motif shared with the Iranian tradition, which is touched in the Rigveda and told in later traditions, Yama and his twin sister Yamī are presented as the children of the sun-god Vivasvat. Discussing the advisability of incest in a primordial context, Yamī insists on having sexual intercourse with her brother Yama, who rejects it, thus forgoing his role as
10656-473: The evidence of other Indo-European languages . For instance, the Latin suffix que , "and", preserves the original *e vowel that caused the consonant shift in Sanskrit: Verner's Law , discovered by Karl Verner c. 1875, provides a similar case: the voicing of consonants in Germanic languages underwent a change that was determined by the position of the old Indo-European accent . Following
10800-497: The existence of a distinct priestly class among the Proto-Indo-Europeans . In the early 1930s, under the pseudonym "Georges Marcenay", he wrote some articles for the right-wing newspapers Candide and Le Jour , where he advocated an alliance between France and Italy against Nazi Germany . Dumézil's opposition to Nazism figures prominently in several of his later works on Germanic religion. At this time Dumézil joined
10944-660: The fall of 1943. During the war, Dumézil significantly reformulated his theories, and applied his trifunctional hypothesis to the study of Indo-Iranians, most notably in his work Mitra-Varuna (1940). In this work, Dumézil suggested that the Indo-Iranian gods Mitra and Varuna represented juridical and religious sovereignty respectively, and that these functions were relics of an earlier Indo-European tradition also manifested in Roman and Norse mythology. In works such as Jupiter, Mars, Quirinus (1941), Horace et les Curiaces (1942), Servius et la Fortune (1943) and Naissance de Rome (1944), Dumézil applied his trifunctional hypothesis to
11088-457: The first sound-law based on comparative evidence showing that a phonological change in one phoneme could depend on other factors within the same word (such as neighbouring phonemes and the position of the accent ), which are now called conditioning environments . Similar discoveries made by the Junggrammatiker (usually translated as " Neogrammarians ") at the University of Leipzig in
11232-503: The first to distribute portions of the cow for consumption, and is explicitly condemned for having introduced the eating of meat. After a brief reign on earth, the king Yima was said in a later tradition to be deprived of his triple royal nimbus, which embodied the three social classes in Iranian myths. Mithra receives the part of the Priest, Thraētona that of the Warrior, and Kərəsāspa that of
11376-505: The following (their actual list would be much longer): Borrowings or false cognates can skew or obscure the correct data. For example, English taboo ( [tæbu] ) is like the six Polynesian forms because of borrowing from Tongan into English, not because of a genetic similarity. That problem can usually be overcome by using basic vocabulary, such as kinship terms, numbers, body parts and pronouns. Nonetheless, even basic vocabulary can be sometimes borrowed. Finnish , for example, borrowed
11520-460: The gods. The myth has been interpreted either as a cosmic conflict between the heavenly hero and the earthly serpent, or as an Indo-European victory over non-Indo-European people, the monster symbolizing the aboriginal thief or usurper. Many Indo-European beliefs explain the origin of natural elements as the result of the original dismemberment of Yemo: his flesh usually becomes the earth, his hair grass, his bone yields stone, his blood water, his eyes
11664-558: The highest office of the State from caprices and ambitions, seemed to me, and still seems to me, preferable to the generalized election in which we have been living since Danton and Bonaparte. The example of the [constitutional] monarchies of the North (of Europe) confirmed to me this feeling. Of course, the formula is not applicable in France." Dumézil died in Paris from a massive stroke on 11 October 1986. He had deliberately refrained from writing
11808-400: The languages and b in only one of them, if *b is reconstructed, it is necessary to assume five separate changes of *b → m , but if *m is reconstructed, it is necessary to assume only one change of *m → b and so *m would be most economical. That argument assumes the languages other than Arapaho to be at least partly independent of one another. If they all formed a common subgroup,
11952-453: The late 19th century led them to conclude that all sound changes were ultimately regular, resulting in the famous statement by Karl Brugmann and Hermann Osthoff in 1878 that "sound laws have no exceptions". That idea is fundamental to the modern comparative method since it necessarily assumes regular correspondences between sounds in related languages and thus regular sound changes from the proto-language. The Neogrammarian hypothesis led to
12096-534: The later forms. It is not phonetic similarity that matters for the comparative method but rather regular sound correspondences. By the principle of economy , the reconstruction of a proto-phoneme should require as few sound changes as possible to arrive at the modern reflexes in the daughter languages. For example, Algonquian languages exhibit the following correspondence set: The simplest reconstruction for this set would be either *m or *b . Both *m → b and *b → m are likely. Because m occurs in five of
12240-435: The latter parth of the 20th century. He was generally regarded as the world's foremost expert on the comparative study of Indo-European mythology. From the late 1960s towards the end of his life, Dumézil's research came to be widely celebrated in the United States, where many of his works on Indo-European mythology were translated into English and published. Additional works inspired by Dumézil's theories were also published in
12384-627: The latter's favourite students, Stig Wikander and Geo Widengren . Through Wikander and Widengren, Dumézil further became acquainted with Otto Höfler . Wikander, Widengren and Höfler would remain lifelong friends and intellectual collaborators of Dumézil. Throughout their careers, these scholars would have a strong influence on each other's research. Most notably, Höflers research on the Germanic comitatus , and Wikander's subsequent research on related warrior fraternities among early Indo-Iranians, would have enormous influence on Dumézil's later research. Dumézil returned to France in 1933, where he through
12528-503: The legend of the third man Trito in a single ancestral motif. Since the 1970s, the reconstructed motifs of Manu and Yemo, and to a lesser extent that of Trito, have been generally accepted among scholars. There is no scholarly consensus as to which of the variants is the most accurate reconstruction of the Proto-Indo-European cosmogonic myth. Bruce Lincoln 's reconstruction of the Proto-Indo-European motif known as "Twin and Man"
12672-409: The linguistic correspondences found in descendant cognates of * Manu and * Yemo- make it very likely that the myth discussed here has a Proto-Indo-European (PIE) origin. Following a first paper on the cosmogonical legend of Manu and Yemo, published simultaneously with Jaan Puhvel in 1975 (who pointed out the Roman reflex of the story), Bruce Lincoln assembled the initial part of the myth with
12816-432: The method's effectiveness. First, it was found that many sound changes are conditioned by a specific context . For example, in both Greek and Sanskrit , an aspirated stop evolved into an unaspirated one, but only if a second aspirate occurred later in the same word; this is Grassmann's law , first described for Sanskrit by Sanskrit grammarian Pāṇini and promulgated by Hermann Grassmann in 1863. Second, it
12960-627: The mid-20th century, a number of linguists have argued that this phonology is implausible and that it is extremely unlikely for a language to have a voiced aspirated ( breathy voice ) series without a corresponding voiceless aspirated series. Thomas Gamkrelidze and Vyacheslav Ivanov provided a potential solution and argued that the series that are traditionally reconstructed as plain voiced should be reconstructed as glottalized : either implosive (ɓ, ɗ, ɠ) or ejective (pʼ, tʼ, kʼ) . The plain voiceless and voiced aspirated series would thus be replaced by just voiceless and voiced, with aspiration being
13104-503: The minerals and humankind. In the Vīdēvdāt , Yima is presented as the builder of an underworld, a sub-terrestrial paradise eventually ruled by Zarathustra and his son. The story, giving a central position to the new religious leader, is once again probably the result of a Zoroastrian reformation of the original myth, and Yima might have been seen as the ruler of the realm of the dead in the early Iranian tradition. Norbert Oettinger argues that
13248-432: The monster. Trito then gives the recovered cattle back to a priest for it to be properly sacrificed. He is now the first warrior, maintaining through his heroic deeds the cycle of mutual giving between gods and mortals. According to Lincoln, Manu and Yemo seem to be the protagonists of "a myth of the sovereign function, establishing the model for later priests and kings", while the legend of Trito should be seen as "a myth of
13392-453: The most influential mythographers of all time. Notable works published by Dumézil in the late 1940s include Tarpeia (1947), Loki (1948), L'Héritage Indo-Européen à Rome (1949) and Le Troisième souverain (1949). The latter work examined the role of Aryaman and his Indo-European counterparts, such the Norse god Heimdallr , in wider Indo-European mythology. Through several influential works of his friend Wikander, Dumézil came to doubt
13536-489: The myth has a Proto-Indo-European origin. According to Edgar C. Polomé , "some elements of the [Scandinavian myth of Ymir] are distinctively Indo-European", but the reconstruction proposed by Lincoln "makes too [many] unprovable assumptions to account for the fundamental changes implied by the Scandinavian version". Lincoln reconstructs a creation myth involving twin brothers, * Manu- ('Man') and * Yemo- ('Twin'), as
13680-530: The mythological and social structures Dumézil identified with Indo-Europeans were not distinctly Indo-European, but rather characteristic of all humanity. Among those were Colin Renfrew , who doubts that Indo-Europeans had anything distinctly in common beyond speaking Indo-European languages. The harshest critics of Dumézil were Arnaldo Momigliano and Carlo Ginzburg , who charged Dumézil with having "sympathy for Nazi culture" due to his writings on Germanic religion in
13824-513: The original k took place because of a different environment. A more complex case involves consonant clusters in Proto-Algonquian . The Algonquianist Leonard Bloomfield used the reflexes of the clusters in four of the daughter languages to reconstruct the following correspondence sets: Although all five correspondence sets overlap with one another in various places, they are not in complementary distribution and so Bloomfield recognised that
13968-410: The original myth, with the figure of Yama laying behind that of Manāvī. After a religious transformation led by Zarathustra around the 7th–6th centuries BC that degraded the status of prior myths and deities, * Manuš was replaced in the Iranian tradition with three different figures: Ahriman , who took his role as first sacrificer; Manūščihr ('son' or 'seed of Manuš'), who replaced him as ancestor of
14112-600: The pantheon of the Mitanni was derived from an earlier pantheon shared by all Indo-Iranians, and that the main deities in the Indo-Iranian pantheon represented the three functions of Indo-European society. According to Dumézil, it was only during the rise of Zoroaster that Ahura Mazda became the chief deity in Iranian mythology. In the years immediately after World War II, Dumézil recruited Claude Lévi-Strauss and Mircea Eliade to EPHE, and both became close friends whom he strongly influenced. These three men are widely considered
14256-406: The political right , but always presented his works as apolitical, and had many friends and admirers on the left , such as Michel Foucault . Defunct Defunct In the 1980–1990s, Dumézil came under heavy criticism from certain scholars, particularly left-wing historians, who accused Dumézil of being a crypto-Fascist and a neo-traditionalist, by implicitly defending in his scholarly writings
14400-541: The priestly line; and Zarathustra himself, who took his role as priest par excellence . Manūščihr is described in the Greater Bun-dahišnīh as the ancestor of all Mōpats ('High Priests') of Pars , and it has been proposed that * Manuš was originally regarded as the First Priest instead of Zarathustra by pre- Zoroastrian tribes. The Indo-Iranian tradition portrays the first mortal man or king, * YamHa , as
14544-516: The primitive common language. In 1710 and 1723, Lambert ten Kate first formulated the regularity of sound laws , introducing among others the term root vowel . Another early systematic attempt to prove the relationship between two languages on the basis of similarity of grammar and lexicon was made by the Hungarian János Sajnovics in 1770, when he attempted to demonstrate the relationship between Sami and Hungarian . That work
14688-475: The principle of regular sound-changes to explain his observations of similarities between individual words in the Germanic languages and their cognates in Greek and Latin. Jacob Grimm , better known for his Fairy Tales , used the comparative method in Deutsche Grammatik (published 1819–1837 in four volumes), which attempted to show the development of the Germanic languages from a common origin, which
14832-433: The progenitors of the world and humankind, and a hero named * Trito ('Third') who ensured the continuity of the original sacrifice. Regarding the primordial state that may have preceded the creation process, West notes that the Vedic, Norse and, at least partially, the Greek traditions give evidence of an era when the cosmological elements were absent, with similar formula insisting on their non-existence: "neither non-being
14976-581: The properties of that ancestor. The comparative method may be contrasted with the method of internal reconstruction in which the internal development of a single language is inferred by the analysis of features within that language. Ordinarily, both methods are used together to reconstruct prehistoric phases of languages; to fill in gaps in the historical record of a language; to discover the development of phonological, morphological and other linguistic systems and to confirm or to refute hypothesised relationships between languages. The comparative method emerged in
15120-460: The recommendation of Lévi, Dumézil also attended lectures by sinologist Marcel Granet , whose methodology for the study of religions was to have a strong influence on Dumézil. Seeking to acquire knowledge of non-Indo-European cultures, Dumézil became proficient in Chinese and gained a deep understanding of Chinese mythology . In his research on the social structure of ancient Indo-Iranians, Dumézil
15264-455: The regular sound-correspondences exhibited by the lists of potential cognates. For example, in the Polynesian data above, it is apparent that words that contain t in most of the languages listed have cognates in Hawaiian with k in the same position. That is visible in multiple cognate sets: the words glossed as 'one', 'three', 'man' and 'taboo' all show the relationship. The situation is called
15408-496: The research of Dumézil continues to form the basis for modern Indo-European studies. His formulation of the trifunctional hypothesis has been described by C. Scott Littleton as one of the most important scholarly achievements of the 20th century. Since 1995, the Académie Française awards the annual Prix Georges Dumézil [ fr ] for a work of philology. Dumézil married Madeleine Legrand in 1925, with whom he had
15552-726: The restoration of a traditional hierarchical order in Europe (e.g. the three estates ). Many of these critics pointed out that Dumézil's lifelong close friend Pierre Gaxotte had been the secretary of Action Française leader Charles Maurras , and that his work had been influential on members of the European New Right , including Alain de Benoist , Jean Haudry , or Roger Pearson , who used his theories to support far-right political positions, with an "Indo-European race" (conflated with white people ) being seen as superior to all other peoples. Bruce Lincoln has argued that Dumézil "maintained
15696-501: The results of the original dismemberment of Yemo: his flesh usually becomes the earth, his hair grass, his bone yields stone, his blood water, his eyes the sun, his mind the moon, his brain the clouds, his breath the wind, and his head the heavens. The traditions of sacrificing an animal before dispersing its parts following socially established patterns, a custom found in Ancient Rome and India, has been interpreted as an attempt to restore
15840-491: The role of Yama as the king of the underworld. Linguist and comparativist Jaan Puhvel proposed that the characters of "Man" and "Twin" are present in Proto-Latin under the names of Romulus and Remus (from * Yemo[no]s ). The former was deified as god Quirinus , a name he considered to be ultimately derived from * wihₓrós ('man'). Following Puhvel's line of argument, Belarusian scholar Siarhiej Sanko attempted to find
15984-452: The same family, the Romance languages . Having a large component of vocabulary from a certain origin is not sufficient to establish relatedness; for example, heavy borrowing from Arabic into Persian has caused more of the vocabulary of Modern Persian to be from Arabic than from the direct ancestor of Persian, Proto-Indo-Iranian , but Persian remains a member of the Indo-Iranian family and
16128-544: The sexes that continued the primordial union of the Sky Father (* Dyēus ) with the Mother Earth (* Dʰéǵʰōm ). According to Lincoln, Manu and Yemo seem to be the protagonists of "a myth of the sovereign function, establishing the model for later priests and kings", while the legend of Trito should be interpreted as "a myth of the warrior function, establishing the model for all later men of arms". The myth indeed recalls
16272-503: The similarities between Greek and Latin, but did not study them systematically. They sometimes explained them mythologically, as the result of Rome being a Greek colony speaking a debased dialect. Even though grammarians of Antiquity had access to other languages around them ( Oscan , Umbrian , Etruscan , Gaulish , Egyptian , Parthian ...), they showed little interest in comparing, studying, or just documenting them. Comparison between languages really began after classical antiquity. In
16416-454: The son of the solar deity, * Hui-(H)uas-uant . Invoked in funeral hymns of the Rigveda , Yama is depicted as the first man to die, the one who established the path towards death after he freely chose his own departure from life. Although his realm was originally associated with feasting, beauty and happiness, Yama was gradually portrayed as a horrific being and the ruler of the Otherworld in
16560-429: The spring of 1938 that Dumézil made a major discovery which was to revolutionize his future research. In his subsequent Mythes et dieux des Germains (1939), Dumézil found that early Germanic society was characterized by the same social divisions as those among the early Indo-Iranians. On this basis, Dumézil formulated his trifunctional hypothesis , which argued that ancient Indo-European societies were characterized by
16704-658: The story of Yima and the Vara was originally a flood myth, and the harsh winter was added in due to the dry nature of Eastern Iran, as flood myths didn't have as much of an effect as harsh winters. He has argued that the Videvdad 2.24's mention of melted water flowing is a remnant of the flood myth , and mentions that the Indian Flood Myths originally had their protagonist as Yama, but it was changed to Manu later. The motif of Manu and Yemo has been influential throughout Eurasia following
16848-423: The study of the Indo-European heritage of ancient Rome . From the late 1940s onwards, the comparative study of Vedic, Roman and Norse mythology and society would constitute the main focus of Dumézil's research. Iranian and Greek mythology played less conspicuous roles in his research. Naissance des archanges (1945) is his sole book on Iranian and Zoroastrian material. In this work, Dumézil suggests that
16992-428: The sun, his mind the moon, his brain the clouds, his breath the wind, and his head the heavens. The traditions of sacrificing an animal to disperse its parts according to socially established patterns, a custom found in Ancient Rome and India, has been interpreted as an attempt to restore the balance of the cosmos ruled by the original sacrifice. The motif of Manu and Yemo has been influential throughout Eurasia following
17136-613: The thesis examined ritual drinks in Indo-Iranian , Germanic , Celtic , Slavic and Italic religion. Dumézil's early writings were also inspired by the research of James George Frazer , whose views were however becoming discredited due to advances in the field of anthropology. At ENS, Dumézil became a close friend of Pierre Gaxotte . Gaxotte was a follower of Charles Maurras , leader of the nationalist Action Française movement. Though some have accused Dumézil of being in sympathy with Action Française, this has been denied by Dumézil, who
17280-463: The third man Trito, the celestial gods offer cattle as a divine gift, which is stolen by a three-headed serpent named * Nghi ('serpent'; and the Indo-European root for negation ). Trito first suffers at his hands, but fortified by an intoxicating drink and aided by a helper-god (the Storm-God or * H₂ner , 'Man'), together they go to a cave or a mountain, and the hero finally manages to overcome
17424-461: The trifunctional Indo-European social structure, which he now regarded more as an ideology than an established system. In 1955, Dumézil spent several months as a visiting professor at the University of Lima , during which he dedicated much time the study of the language and mythology of the Quechua people . During the 1950s, Dumézil conducted much research on what he hypothesised to be a war between
17568-698: The underworld; the Avestan Yima , king of the Golden Age and guardian of the Otherworld ; the Norse Ymir (from Proto-Germanic * Jumijaz ), ancestor of the giants ( jötnar ); and most likely Remus (from Proto-Latin * Yemos or * Yemonos , with the initial /y/ shifting to /r/ under the influence of Rōmulus ), killed in the Roman foundation myth by his twin brother Romulus . Latvian jumis ('double fruit'), Latin geminus ('twin', cf.
17712-495: The universalist theories of Durkheim and Lévi-Strauss, and thus contended that the trinfuctional structure of Indo-European society was a distinct characteristic of the Indo-Europeans. Dumézil had studied the languages and mythology of several indigenous peoples of the Americas , and contended that trifunctionalism was not prevalent among those peoples. Dumézil was elected to the Collège de France in 1949, where he until 1968
17856-551: The various functions in Indo-European mythology, which he suggested culminated in the incorporation of the third function into the first and second function. Dumézil's ideas on this topic were published in Aspects de la fonction guerrière chez les Indo-Européens (1956). Other notable works published by Dumézil in the 1950s include Hadingus (1953), and several works on Roman, Celtic and Germanic religion. His L'Idéologie tripartie des Indo-Européens , published in 1958, has been described as
18000-466: The warrior (the Third Man), and the herder (the cow). Hermann Güntert, stressing philological parallels between the Germanic and Indo-Iranian texts, argued in 1923 for an inherited Indo-European motif of the creation of the world from the sacrifice and dismemberment of a primordial androgyne . Some scholars have proposed that the primeval being Yemo was depicted as a two-folded hermaphrodite rather than
18144-430: The warrior function, establishing the model for all later men of arms". He has thus interpreted the narrative as an expression of the priests's and kings's attempt to justify their role as indispensable for the preservation of the cosmos, and therefore as essential for the organization of society. The motif indeed recalls the Dumézilian tripartition of the cosmos between the priest (in both his magical and legal aspects),
18288-477: The word for "mother", äiti , from Proto-Germanic *aiþį̄ (compare to Gothic aiþei ). English borrowed the pronouns "they", "them", and "their(s)" from Norse . Thai and various other East Asian languages borrowed their numbers from Chinese . An extreme case is represented by Pirahã , a Muran language of South America, which has been controversially claimed to have borrowed all of its pronouns from Nheengatu . The next step involves determining
18432-453: The works Dumézil referred to as his "Ambrosia cycle". Dumézil's work in Istanbul would be of enormous importance to his future research, and he would later consider his years in Istanbul as the happiest of his life. In 1930, Dumézil published his important La préhistoire indo-iranienne des castes . Drawing upon evidence from Avestan , Persian , Greek , Ossetian and Arabic sources, Dumézil suggested that ancient Indo-Iranians, including
18576-455: The worship, by the Prussians , of stone statues erected during their expansion in the 12th and 13th centuries. Comparative method In linguistics , the comparative method is a technique for studying the development of languages by performing a feature-by-feature comparison of two or more languages with common descent from a shared ancestor and then extrapolating backwards to infer
18720-582: The zodiac sign Gemini ) and Middle Irish emuin ('twin') are also linguistically related. Cognates stemming from the First Warrior * Trito ('Third') include the Vedic Trita , the hero who recovered the stolen cattle from the serpent Vṛtrá ; the Avestan Thrita and Thraētona ('Third' and 'Son of Third'), who won back the abducted women from the serpent Aži Dahāka ; and
18864-416: Was August Schleicher (1821–1868) in his Compendium der vergleichenden Grammatik der indogermanischen Sprachen , originally published in 1861. Here is Schleicher's explanation of why he offered reconstructed forms: In the present work an attempt is made to set forth the inferred Indo-European original language side by side with its really existent derived languages. Besides the advantages offered by such
19008-491: Was Chair of Indo-European Civilization. This position was specifically created for him. In the 1950s and 1960s, Dumézil's theories gained increasing acceptance among scholars. The spread of Dumézil's theories was greatly aided by support he received from friends such as Émile Benveniste, Stig Wikander, Otto Höfler and Jan de Vries. Notable Iranologists who adopted Dumézil's theories include Benveniste, Wikander, Geo Widengren, Jacques Duchesne-Guillemin and Marijan Mole . Dumézil
19152-493: Was a crypto-Fascist. Charges of Fascist sympathies have nevertheless continued to be leveled, most notably by Eliade's former student Bruce Lincoln . Inspired by the critique of Momigliano and Ginzburg, Lincoln has criticized Dumézil from a Marxist perspective, and suggested that Dumézil was a Germanophobic Fascist. Similar accusations have also been leveled by the Swedish Marxist historian Stefan Arvidsson , who hopes that
19296-606: Was a fervent Dreyfusard known for his philosemitism , republicanism , anti-racism and Germanophobia . Dumézil had deliberately avoided attending Hubert's lectures, and had to be convinced by Meillet to provide Hubert with a copy of his PhD thesis, which Hubert subsequently bitterly criticized. The refusal of Mauss and Hubert to provide Dumézil with a position may have been motivated by suspicions that Dumézil did not agree with them politically. The rejection by Hubert led to Dumézil losing support from Meillet as well. Meilett informed Dumézil that it would be impossible for him to acquire
19440-467: Was found that sometimes sound changes occurred in contexts that were later lost. For instance, in Sanskrit velars ( k -like sounds) were replaced by palatals ( ch -like sounds) whenever the following vowel was *i or *e . Subsequent to this change, all instances of *e were replaced by a . The situation could be reconstructed only because the original distribution of e and a could be recovered from
19584-627: Was greatly aided by Benveniste, who had earlier been critical of Dumézil's theories. During his early years at EPHE, Dumézil modified many his theories. Most importantly, he increasingly shifted his focus from linguistic evidence to evidence from ancient social structures. Iranologists who influenced Dumézil in this approach include Arthur Christensen , James Darmesteter , Hermann Güntert and Herman Lommel . Notable works of Dumézil from this period include Ouranos-Varuna (1934) and Flamen-Brahman (1935). Ouranos-Varuna examined similarities in Greek and Vedic mythology , while Flamen-Brahman examined
19728-528: Was however also criticized by certain Indologists , Iranologists and Romanists . Indologist Paul Thieme notably argued that the gods of the Mitanni were distinctly Indo-Aryan rather than Indo-Iranian, and that Dumézil's reconstruction of Indo-Iranian religion was thus mistaken. Dumézil responded vigorously to such criticism, while also continuously refining his theories. Most notably, Dumézil modified his theories on
19872-636: Was in April 1940 posted to the French military mission in Ankara , Turkey, where he remained during the Battle of France . He was repatriated to France in September 1940, and subsequently returned to full-time teaching at EPHE. Because he had been a Freemason as a young man, Dumézil was fired from EPHE by the pro-Nazi Vichy government in early 1941. Through the influence of colleagues, he was however able to regain his position in
20016-462: Was later extended to all Finno-Ugric languages in 1799 by his countryman Samuel Gyarmathi . However, the origin of modern historical linguistics is often traced back to Sir William Jones , an English philologist living in India , who in 1786 made his famous observation: The Sanscrit language , whatever be its antiquity, is of a wonderful structure; more perfect than the Greek , more copious than
20160-480: Was more interested in mythology than linguistics. In the 19th century, philologists such as Franz Felix Adalbert Kuhn , Max Müller and Elard Hugo Meyer (who had influenced Bréal) had conducted notable work on comparative mythology, but their theories had since been found to be mostly untenable. Dumézil became determined to restore the field of comparative mythology from its contemporary discredit. Dumézil lectured at Lycee de Beauvais in 1920, and taught French at
20304-444: Was never a member of the organization. Dumézil's PhD thesis was highly praised by Meillet, who requested Marcel Mauss and Henri Hubert , both followers of Émile Durkheim , to assist Dumézil with further studies. For reasons unknown, the request was turned down. Mauss and Hubert were both socialists in the spirit of Jean Jaurès , who actively used their academic influence to advance their own political ideology. Hubert in particular
20448-424: Was nor being was at that time; there was not the air, nor the heaven beyond it ..." ( Rigveda ), "... there was not sand nor sea nor the cool waves; earth was nowhere nor heaven above; Ginnungagap there was, but grass nowhere ..." ( Völuspá ), "... there was Chasm and Night and dark Erebos at first, and broad Tartarus , but earth nor air nor heaven there was ..." ( The Birds ). To
20592-495: Was published in 1977. He received the Prix mondial Cino Del Duca in 1984. In his later years, Dumézil became a visible figure in French society, and was frequently interviewed and cited in the public press. His theories on Indo-European society were celebrated by Nouvelle Droite figures such as Alain de Benoist , Michel Poniatowski and Jean Haudry , but Dumézil was careful to distance himself from them. Dumézil openly identified with
20736-401: Was the first systematic study of diachronic language change. Both Rask and Grimm were unable to explain apparent exceptions to the sound laws that they had discovered. Although Hermann Grassmann explained one of the anomalies with the publication of Grassmann's law in 1862, Karl Verner made a methodological breakthrough in 1875, when he identified a pattern now known as Verner's law ,
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