Roger Lescot

Roger Lescot (1914–1975) was a French orientalist and diplomat known for his research of the Kurdish language.
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, and in 1936, in 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. Roger Lescot and Pierre Rondot supervised the Kurdish activities within the French Mandate, specializing in Kurdish press and literature. Both were working together with Kurdish activists and were supportive of the Kurdish cultural aims. Lescot then wrote for several Kurdish outlets such as the "Hawar", "Roja Nû" or "Ronahî". Lescot was a close collaborator to members of the Berdirkan family. 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, and traspassed to Kamuran Bedirkhan, as he took up diplomatic work as a French diplomat in Cairo and work for the French intelligence. 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. He published his and Celadet Bedirkhan's Grammaire Kurde in 1970. 