Roger Lescot

Roger Lescot (1914–1975) was a French orientalist and diplomat known for his research of the Kurdish language.^[1]

Biography

Roger Lescot obtained a degree in Arabic and Oriental literature in 1935. Later he also gained a degree in Turkish and Persian. In 1935 he began to learn Kurdish,^[2] and in 1936 during the French Mandate of Syria, he was in contact with the Yazidi in the Kurd Dagh and also with the Shia in the south of Lebanon.^[2] Roger Lescot and Pierre Rondot supervised the Kurdish activities within the French Mandate, specializing in Kurdish press and literature.^[3] Both were working together with Kurdish activists and were supportive of the Kurdish cultural aims.^[4] Lescot then wrote for several Kurdish outlets such as the Hawar, Roja Nû or Ronahî.^[5] Lescot was a close collaborator to members of the Berdirkhan family.^[6]

Upon his initiative the chair for Kurdish lectures was created at the National Institute for Oriental Languages and Civilizations (INALCO) in 1945, a position he held until 1947,^[7] and trespassed to Kamuran Bedirkhan, as he took up diplomatic work as a French diplomat in Cairo^[1] and work for the French intelligence.^[8] After four years of studies about the Kurdish national epic Mem û Zîn he published a version of it in Kurdish and a translation in French in 1942.^[9] In 1953 he published a French translation from the Persian of Sadegh Hedayat's novel The Blind Owl as La chouette aveugle.^[10] He published his and Celadet Bedirkhan's Grammaire kurde in 1970.^[6]

Works

• Proverbes et énigmes kurdes, Paris: Librairie Orientaliste Paul Geuthner, 1937
• Quelques pages inédites de Djâmî, ca. 1937
• Enquête sur les yezidis de Syrie et du Djebel Sindjar, Beirut: 1938
• Notes sur la presse Iranienne, Paris: Librairie Orientaliste Paul Geuthner, 1938
• La réforme du vocabulaire en Iran, Paris: Librairie Orientaliste Paul Geuthner, 1939
• Textes kurdes, Paris: Librairie Orientaliste Paul Geuthner, 1940–42
• Mem û Zîn, Beirut: 1942, Beirut
• La chouette aveugle, Paris: Jose Corti, 1953
• Anthologie de la poésie persane : XIe-XXe siècle. Textes choisis par Z. Safâ, traduits par G. [Gilbert] Lazard, R. [Roger] Lescot et H. [Henri] Massé, Paris: Gallimard, 1964
• Grammaire kurde, Paris: Librairie d'Amérique et d'Orient, 1970