Antoine Isaac, Baron Silvestre de Sacy (21 September 1758 – 21 February 1838), was a
FrenchFrance , officially the French Republic , is a country located in Western Europe, with several overseas islands and territories located on other continents. Metropolitan France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, and from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean...
linguist and
orientalistOriental studies is the academic field of study that embraces Near Eastern and Far Eastern societies and cultures, languages, peoples, history and archaeology; in recent years the term Asian studies has mostly replaced the older term. European study of the region had primarily religious origins,...
. His son
Ustazade Silvestre de SacySamuel Ustazade Silvestre de Sacy was a French journalist. The son of Antoine-Isaac Silvestre de Sacy , he was for 20 years the editor of the Journal des Débats, also contributing critical work to it. He became a curator at the Bibliothèque Mazarine in 1836 and became its administrator in 1848...
became a journalist.
Sacy was born in Paris to a
notaryCivil-law notaries are specialized lawyers acting as public officers with jurisdiction over voluntary, i.e., non-contentious, private law. Unlike notary publics, their common-law counterparts, they are able to provide legal advice and prepare instruments with legal effect...
named Abraham Silvestre, of Jewish origin. The additional name of de Sacy was taken by the younger son after a fashion then common with the Parisian
bourgeoisieHistorically, the bourgeoisie were a social class of people, characterized by their ownership of capital and the related culture. They were a part of the middle or merchant classes of European feudalism, where their power came from employment, education, and wealth, as distinguished from those...
. Sacy's father died when he was seven years old, and he was educated in isolation by his mother.
In 1781 he was appointed councillor in the
cour des monnaiesThe Cour des monnaies was one of the sovereign courts of Ancien Régime France. It was set up in 1552. It and the other Ancien Régime tribunals were suppressed in 1791 after the French Revolution.- Origins :...
, and was advanced in 1791 to be a commissary-general in the same department.
Antoine Isaac, Baron Silvestre de Sacy (21 September 1758 – 21 February 1838), was a
FrenchFrance , officially the French Republic , is a country located in Western Europe, with several overseas islands and territories located on other continents. Metropolitan France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, and from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean...
linguist and
orientalistOriental studies is the academic field of study that embraces Near Eastern and Far Eastern societies and cultures, languages, peoples, history and archaeology; in recent years the term Asian studies has mostly replaced the older term. European study of the region had primarily religious origins,...
. His son
Ustazade Silvestre de SacySamuel Ustazade Silvestre de Sacy was a French journalist. The son of Antoine-Isaac Silvestre de Sacy , he was for 20 years the editor of the Journal des Débats, also contributing critical work to it. He became a curator at the Bibliothèque Mazarine in 1836 and became its administrator in 1848...
became a journalist.
Sacy was born in Paris to a
notaryCivil-law notaries are specialized lawyers acting as public officers with jurisdiction over voluntary, i.e., non-contentious, private law. Unlike notary publics, their common-law counterparts, they are able to provide legal advice and prepare instruments with legal effect...
named Abraham Silvestre, of Jewish origin. The additional name of de Sacy was taken by the younger son after a fashion then common with the Parisian
bourgeoisieHistorically, the bourgeoisie were a social class of people, characterized by their ownership of capital and the related culture. They were a part of the middle or merchant classes of European feudalism, where their power came from employment, education, and wealth, as distinguished from those...
. Sacy's father died when he was seven years old, and he was educated in isolation by his mother.
In 1781 he was appointed councillor in the
cour des monnaiesThe Cour des monnaies was one of the sovereign courts of Ancien Régime France. It was set up in 1552. It and the other Ancien Régime tribunals were suppressed in 1791 after the French Revolution.- Origins :...
, and was advanced in 1791 to be a commissary-general in the same department. Having successively studied
Semitic languagesThe Semitic languages are a group of related languages whose living representatives are spoken by more than 467 million people across much of the Middle East, North Africa and the Horn of Africa...
, he began to make a name as an orientalist, and between 1787-1791 worked on the Pahlavi inscriptions of the Sassanid kings. In 1792 he retired from public service, and lived in close seclusion in a cottage near Paris till in 1795 he became professor of
ArabicArabic is a Central Semitic language, thus related to and classified alongside other Semitic languages such as Hebrew and the Neo-Aramaic languages. In terms of speakers, the Arabic macrolanguage is the largest member of the Semitic language family. It is spoken by more than 280 million people as...
in the newly founded school of living Eastern languages (École speciale des langues orientales vivantes).
During this interval Sacy studied the religion of the
DruzeThe Druze are a religious community found primarily in Syria, Lebanon, Israel, and Jordan, whose traditional religion is said to have begun as an offshoot of Islam, but is unique in its incorporation of Gnostic, neo-Platonic and other philosophies, similar to other followers of Ismaili Shi'a...
, the subject of his last and unfinished work, the
Exposé de la religion des Druzes (2 vols., 1838). He published the following Arabic textbooks:
- Grammaire arabe (2 vols., 1st ed. 1810)
- Chrestomathie arabe (3 vols., 1806)
- Anthologie grammaticale (1829)
In 1806 he added the duties of
PersianPersian is an Iranian language within the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European languages. It is widely spoken in Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and to some extent in Iraq and Bahrain, and has a status of official language in the first three countries under different names...
professor to his old chair, and from this time onwards his life was one of increasing honour and success, broken only by a brief period of retreat during the
Hundred DaysThe Hundred Days, sometimes known as the Hundred Days of Napoleon or Napoleon's Hundred Days for specificity, marked the period between Napoleon Bonaparte's return from exile on Elba to Paris on 20 March 1815 and the second restoration of King Louis XVIII on 8 July 1815...
. He was perpetual secretary of the Academy of Inscriptions from 1832 onwards; in 1808 he had entered the
corps législatif; he was made a baron in 1813; and in 1832, when quite an old man, be became a peer of France and was regular in the duties of the chamber. In 1815 he became
rectorThe word rector has a number of different meanings; they indicate an academic, religious or political administrator...
of the
University of ParisThe historic University of Paris was founded in the mid 12th century, likely between 1160 and 1170 , In 1970 it was reorganized as 13 autonomous universities...
, and after the Second Restoration he was active on the commission of public instruction. With Abel Rémusat, he was joint founder of the
Société asiatiqueThe Société Asiatique is a French learned society dedicated to the study of Asia.The society was founded in 1822 with the mission of developing and diffusing knowledge of Asia. Its boundaries of geographic interest are broad, ranging from the Maghreb to the Far East. The society publishes the...
, and was inspector of oriental types at the royal printing press.
Among his other works are his edition of
Hariri (1822), with a selected Arabic commentary, and of the
Alfiya (1833), and his
Calila et Dimna (1816)--the Arabic version of that famous collection of Buddhist animal tales which has been in various forms one of the most popular books of the world. A version of
Abd-el-latifAbd-al-latif, Abd-el-latif or Abd-ul-Latif , also known as al-Baghdadi , born in Baghdad, Iraq, was a celebrated physician, historian, Egyptologist and traveller, and one of the most voluminous writers of the Near East in his time.-Biography:An interesting memoir of Abdallatif, written by himself,...
,
Relation arabe sur l'Egypte, and essays on the history of the law of property in
EgyptEgypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Western Asia...
since the Arab conquest (1805-1818). To
biblical criticismBiblical criticism is "the study and investigation of biblical writings that seeks to make discerning and discriminating judgments about these writings." It asks when and where a particular text originated; how, why, by whom, for whom, and in what circumstances it was produced; what influences were...
he contributed a memoir on the Samaritan Arabic of the
Pentateuch (
Mini. Acad. des Inscr. vol. xlix), and editions of the
Arabic and Syriac New Testaments for the
British and Foreign Bible SocietyThe British and Foreign Bible Society, often known in England and Wales as simply as Bible Society, is a non-denominational Christian charity formed on 4 March 1804.It exists to bring the Bible's life-changing message to those who still wait for it....
. Of his students may be mentioned Professor
Heinrich Leberecht FleischerHeinrich Leberecht Fleischer , was a German Orientalist.He was born at Schandau, Saxony. From 1819 to 1824, he studied theology and Oriental languages at Leipzig, subsequently continuing his studies in Paris...
(1801-1888), who contributed elaborate notes and corrections to the
Grammaire arabe (
Kleinere Schriften, vol. i., 1885).
Sacy was a contemporary and teacher of Champollion. He made some progress in identifying proper names in the
demoticDemotic refers to either the ancient Egyptian script derived from northern forms of hieratic used in the Delta, or the stage of the Egyptian language following Late Egyptian and preceding Coptic. The term was first used by the Greek historian Herodotus to distinguish it from hieratic and...
inscription on the
Rosetta StoneThe Rosetta Stone is an Ancient Egyptian artifact which was instrumental in advancing modern understanding of Egyptian hieroglyphic writing. The stone is a Ptolemaic era stele with carved text made up of three translations of a single passage: two in Egyptian language scripts and one in classical...
.
Famous Students
- Jean-François Champollion
Jean-François Champollion was a French classical scholar, philologist and orientalist, decipherer of the Egyptian hieroglyphs....
, orientalist, translator of the Rosetta stone
- John Martin Augustine Scholz
John Martin Augustine Scholz was a German Catholic Orientalist and exegete.- Life :He studied in the Catholic gymnasium and the University of Breslau...
, Professor in Bonn
- Heinrich Leberecht Fleischer
Heinrich Leberecht Fleischer , was a German Orientalist.He was born at Schandau, Saxony. From 1819 to 1824, he studied theology and Oriental languages at Leipzig, subsequently continuing his studies in Paris...
, Professor in LeipzigLeipzig is, with a population of 515,459, the largest city in the federal state of Saxony, Germany.-Origins:Leipzig's name is derived from the Slavic word Lipsk, which means "settlement where the lime trees stand"....
- Johann Gottfried Ludwig Kosegarten
Johann Gottfried Ludwig Kosegarten was a German Orientalist who was born in Altenkirchen on the island of Rügen. He was the son of ecclesiastic Ludwig Gotthard Kosegarten ....
, Professor in Jena and in Greifswald
- August Ferdinand Mehren
August Ferdinand Mehren was a Danish Orientalist and philologist who was a native of Helsingør.He studied at the Universities of Copenhagen, Leipzig and Kiel, obtaining his doctorate in 1845. In Leipzig he was a student of Heinrich Leberecht Fleischer , and in Kiel he studied under Justus Olshausen...
, Professor in CopenhagenCopenhagen ; ) is the capital and largest city of Denmark, with an urban area with a population of 1,167,569 and a metropolitan area with a population of 1,875,179...
- Justus Olshausen
Justus Olshausen was a German Orientalist and philologist who was a native of Hohenfelde. He was the brother of theologian Hermann Olshausen , and father to gynecologist Robert Michaelis von Olshausen ....
, Professor in KielKiel is the capital and most populous city of the northern German state Schleswig-Holstein, with a population of over 236,000 .Kiel is approximately to the north of Hamburg. Due to its geographic location in the north of Germany, the southeast of the Jutland peninsula, and the southwestern shore...
- Johann Gustav Stickel
Johann Gustav Stickel was a German theologian, orientalist and numismatist.- Biography :Stickel was born in Eisenach in 1805. He went to school in Buttelstedt and in Weimar. In his youth he demonstrated a gift for the Hebrew language...
(1805-1896), Professor in JenaJena is a university city in central Germany on the river Saale. With a population of 103,000 it is the second largest city in the federal state of Thuringia, after Erfurt.-History:Jena was first mentioned in an 1182 document...
- Carl Johan Tornberg (1807-77), Professor in Uppsala
Uppsala University is a research university in Uppsala, Sweden. Founded as early as 1477, it is the oldest such institution in the Nordic countries, and for centuries has been one of Europe's most renowned seats of learning....
- Louis-Mathieu Langlès
Louis-Mathieu Langlès was a French academic, philologist, linguist, translator, author, librarian and orientalist. He was the conservator of the oriental manuscripts at the Bibliothèque Nationale in Napoleonic France and he held the same position at the re-named Bibliothèque du Roi after the fall...
, Curator, Bibliotheque Nationale
- Adam Franz Lennig
Adam Franz Lennig was a ultramontanistic German Catholic theologian.-Life:Lennig studied at Bruchsal under the private tutorship of the ex-Jesuit Laurentius Doller, and afterwards at the bishop's gymnasium at Mainz, his birthplace...
, German Catholic theologian, and one of the most influential German priests of his day.
De Sacy assisted the young composer
Fromental HalévyJacques-François-Fromental-Élie Halévy was a French composer. He is known today largely for his opera La Juive.-Early career:...
in his early career, giving him a testimonial during his application for the
Prix de RomeThe Prix de Rome was a scholarship for arts students, principally of painting, sculpture and architecture. It was created, initially for painters and sculptors, in 1663 in France during the reign of Louis XIV. It was an annual bursary for promising artists who proved their talents by completing a...
.