Jean-Jacques Origas, a French scholar of Japanese literature and expert in Japanese-language teaching, died Sunday at a hospital in a Paris suburb, sources in Japan who were close to him said. He was 65.
Origas came to Japan and studied at Waseda University in Tokyo in the early 1960s and later taught at Tokyo University of Foreign Studies.
He was noted for his studies of modern Japanese literature and art history and was a leading expert in Japanese-language teaching in France. He was a professor at the National Institute of Oriental Languages and Civilizations in Paris, commonly known as the Langues 'O.
At one time he also served as a visiting professor at the International Research Center for Japanese Studies, a government-funded institute in Kyoto. In 1998, he was decorated with the Japanese government's Order of the Sacred Treasure, Gold Rays with Neck Ribbon.
Origas died of pulmonary thrombosis, the sources said.