Joseph Jean Baptiste Marie Vendryès was born on 13 January 1875 in Paris (9th arrondissement). His father, Albert Jean Baptiste Eugène Vendryès, worked for the
Ministry of Public Instruction, and his grandfather, Jean-Baptiste Vendryès, was an alumnus of the
École normale supérieure and served as a school inspector in Caen and Melun. Vendryès studied at the pensionnat des Oblats de Saint-François de Sales and the École Sainte-Anne in
Saint-Ouen (1883–1889), then as an external student at the
Lycée Louis-le-Grand. He earned a
baccalauréat ès lettres in 1891, a
licence ès lettres in 1894, and became
agrégé in grammar in 1896. He held several research fellowships, including study grants in Germany (1898–1899) and at the
École pratique des hautes études (1897–1900). He earned his
doctorat ès lettres in May 1902. Vendryès began his academic career in 1901 as
chargé d’une suppléance at the
École pratique des hautes études (EPHE). He subsequently held positions as
chargé de cours in Greek at the Faculté des lettres de Clermont-Ferrand (1902),
professeur adjoint of Greek language and literature (1905), and
chargé de cours of Greek literature and institutions at the Faculté des lettres de Caen (1906). He became
professeur titulaire in 1907. In 1914 he was appointed
chargé de cours in comparative grammar and Indo-European languages at the
Faculté des lettres de Paris, and later held positions as
professeur adjoint (1919),
professeur sans chaire (1921), and professor of linguistics (from April 1923). He also taught general linguistics at the École normale supérieure (1920–1936). Vendryès held administrative roles including assessor to the dean of the Faculty of Letters of Paris (from July 1928) and dean of the Faculty (from December 1937). He was suspended on 1 April 1944 and reinstated on 20 August 1944. He retired on 31 December 1944 and was named honorary dean on 19 April 1945. In addition to his university roles, Vendryès served as
directeur d’études at the EPHE (Celtic languages and literatures) from 7 December 1925. He was a member of the
University Council from 1927 and served in the military from 1914 to 1919, rising from lieutenant of the territorial army to captain in 1915 and serving in the general staff.
Personal life and death Vendryès received several honours: he was made
Commander of the Légion d’honneur (1939), elected to the
Académie des inscriptions et belles-lettres (1931), served as its vice-president in 1938, and received the Prix Osiris in 1952. He held honorary doctorates from the
National University of Ireland (1925),
Trinity College Dublin (1932), the
University of Wales (1937), and was a member of multiple international academies, including those of Oslo (1932), Copenhagen (1933), Dublin (1934), Prague (1936), and Amsterdam (1939). On 3 July 1906 he married Germaine Marie Félicie Prévost in Lyon, with whom he had three children: Suzanne (1907), Pierre (1908), and Georges (1920). He died in Paris on 30 January 1960. ==Published works==