Everything about Silvestre De Sacy totally explained
Antoine Isaac, Baron Silvestre de Sacy (
September 21,
1758 –
February 21,
1838), was a
French linguist and orientalist.
Sacy was born in Paris to a
notary 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
bourgeoisie. 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 monnaies, and was advanced in 1791 to be a commissary-general in the same department. Having successively studied
Semitic languages, he began to make a name as an
orientalist, working on the
Pahlavi inscriptions of the
Sassanid kings (1787-1791). In 1792 he retired from public service, and lived in close seclusion in a cottage near Paris till in 1795 he became professor of
Arabic in the newly founded school of living Eastern languages (École speciale des langues orientales vivantes).
During this interval Sacy studied the religion of the
Druze, 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
Persian 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 Days. He was perpetual secretary of the
Academy of Inscriptions from 1832 onwards; in 1808 he'd 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
rector of the
University of Paris, and after the
Second Restoration he was active on the commission of public instruction. With
Abel Rémusat, he was joint founder of the
Société asiatique, 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-latif,
Relation arabe sur l'Egypte, and essays on the history of the law of property in
Egypt since the Arab conquest (1805-1818). To
biblical criticism 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 Society. Of his students may be mentioned Professor
Heinrich Leberecht Fleischer (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
demotic inscription on the
Rosetta Stone.
Famous Students
John Martin Augustine Scholz, Professor in Bonn
Heinrich Leberecht Fleischer, Professor in Leipzig
Johann Gottfried Kosegarten, Professor in Jena and in Greifswald
August Mehren, Professor in Copenhagen
Justus Olshausen, Professor in Kiel
Johann Gustav Stickel (1805-1896), Professor in Jena
Carl Johan Tornberg (1807-77), Professor in Uppsala
Adam Franz Lennig, German Catholic theologian, and one of the most influential German priests of his day.
De Sacy assisted the young composer Fromental Halévy in his early career, giving him a testimonial during his application for the Prix de Rome.
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