• Date of Birth: October 17, 1913
  • Born City: Dardagny
  • Born State/Country: Geneva, Switzerland
  • Parents: Joseph Jules & Eugenie Beetscher B.
  • Date of Death: August 19, 1989
  • Death City: Ottawa
  • Death State/Country: ON
  • Married: Marthe Julie Roder, 1944; Jeanne Dussex, 1958; Mireille Paulette Pugin, 1967; Paulette Cetoute, 1986.
  • Education:

    Licence is Lettres U. Geneva, 1938; Doctorat es Lettres, 1944.

  • Dissertation:

    "Les Illyriens en Grece et en Italie" (Geneva, 1943).

  • Professional Experience:

    Asst. to Walther von Wartburg in etymological dictionary of French, Basel, 1945-8; lect. class. College de Geneve, Ecole superieure de filles, 1948-50; U. Geneva, 1950-7; U. Damascus, 1957-60; College classique Jean Calvin (Geneva), 1960-5; prof, class. U. Ottawa, 1965-79.

  • Publications:

    Les Argonautes de Pindare (Geneva & Paris, 1949); Pindare, Dix Odes (Lausanne, 1951); Bacchylide, Ode a Hieron de Syracuse, with M. Clavien (La Bacconiere, 1958); Mythologie de la Suisse ancienne, with R. Christinger (Geneva, 1963); FASTI VMBRICI, Recher-ches sur le vocabulaire et le rituel des Tables Eugubines (Ottawa, 1983); some two dozen articles.

  • Notes:

    A pupil of Charles Bailly, himself a pupil of Ferdinand de Saussure, Borgeaud was a brilliant Indo-European linguist with a strong interest in the history of religions (mythology and rituals), a master of the French language and a poet. He was also a student at Berlin of Julius Pokorny at the beginning of World War II. On campus at Ottawa he was an original figure, displaying Socratic wit and good humor, sporting an Einstein hairdo and followed in every quarter by a throng of disciples. Supremely disorganized and casual, he did not live long enough for all his research (e.g.^ a grammar of old Albanian) to see print.

  • Sources:

    Family.

  • Author: Pierre Brind 'Amour