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Concept
Georges Dumézil
Summary
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 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 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 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 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.
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