Jean Przyluski (17 August 1885 – 28 October 1944) was a French linguist and scholar of

religion Religion is a range of social system, social-cultural systems, including designated religious behaviour, behaviors and practices, morals, beliefs, worldviews, religious text, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics in religion, ethics, or ...

and

Buddhism Buddhism, also known as Buddhadharma and Dharmavinaya, is an Indian religion and List of philosophies, philosophical tradition based on Pre-sectarian Buddhism, teachings attributed to the Buddha, a wandering teacher who lived in the 6th or ...

of Polish descent. His interests ranged widely through the structure of the

Vietnamese language Vietnamese () is an Austroasiatic languages, Austroasiatic language Speech, spoken primarily in Vietnam where it is the official language. It belongs to the Vietic languages, Vietic subgroup of the Austroasiatic language family. Vietnamese is s ...

, the development of

Buddhist Buddhism, also known as Buddhadharma and Dharmavinaya, is an Indian religion and List of philosophies, philosophical tradition based on Pre-sectarian Buddhism, teachings attributed to the Buddha, a wandering teacher who lived in the 6th or ...

myths and

legend A legend is a genre of folklore that consists of a narrative featuring human actions, believed or perceived to have taken place in human history. Narratives in this genre may demonstrate human values, and possess certain qualities that give the ...

s, as well as

Indo-European The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the northern Indian subcontinent, most of Europe, and the Iranian plateau with additional native branches found in regions such as Sri Lanka, the Maldives, parts of Central Asia (e. ...

folk tradition Folklore is the body of expressive culture shared by a particular group of people, culture or subculture. This includes oral traditions such as Narrative, tales, myths, legends, proverbs, Poetry, poems, jokes, and other oral traditions. This also ...

s such as the

werewolf In folklore, a werewolf (), or occasionally lycanthrope (from Ancient Greek ), is an individual who can shapeshifting, shapeshift into a wolf, or especially in modern film, a Shapeshifting, therianthropic Hybrid beasts in folklore, hybrid wol ...

cult. In addition, he thought out general theories about the development of religion, which he presented in his magnum opus ''L'

Evolution Evolution is the change in the heritable Phenotypic trait, characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. It occurs when evolutionary processes such as natural selection and genetic drift act on genetic variation, re ...

humaine'' (1942).

Bibliography

Renou, Louis. "Jean Przyluski (1885-1944)". In ''École pratique des hautes études: Section des sciences historiques et philologiques'' 77 (1946): 5-7
1885 births 1944 deaths 20th-century French linguists French people of Polish descent {{France-linguist-stub