Antoine-Isaac Silvestre de Sacy

Antoine Isaac, Baron Silvestre de Sacy [ sasi ] ( born September 21, 1758 in Paris, † February 21, 1838 ) was a French philologist. He is considered the founder of modern Arabic and had a decisive influence on the development of Oriental Studies.

Biography

As the son of the Parisian notary Antoine Isaac Silvestre Abraham was, of ( a small village in Burgundy ) was nicknamed de Sacy, born into upscale bourgeois relations. Since he lost his father at an early age of seven, he was raised by his strict religious mother. Through the Benedictine Dom BERTHEREAU he came with just twelve years with his first Semitic language, Hebrew in contact. Antoine Isaac soon showed a special talent for languages ​​, so he met with almost no instructions, the other Semitic languages, Aramaic, Arabic and then Persian, Turkish, German, English, Italian and Spanish.

From 1780, he began to make a name for Biblical and Oriental literature by Johann Gottfried Eichhorn by publication of articles on Old Testament texts (eg, a Syriac translation of the Book of Kings ) that appears in the magazine in Leipzig repertory. After studying law, he took in 1781 an advisory body to the Cour des monnaies, the French Münzhof to, devoted himself besides his work but with great zeal to his studies and in 1785 a member of the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles- Lettres ( Academy of Inscriptions ), in which he contributed a number of interpretations of the Notices et extraits, an annotated edition of the manuscripts of the royal library. In the same year he published his history Mémoires sur l' histoire des Arabes avant Mahomet. It followed other publications in the next five years. Because of his negative attitude towards the political upheavals of the revolutionary period to de Sacy Despite of a promotion from his job at the Münzhof back to his country seat in Brie and devoted himself further work and studies, such as the religion of the Druze, an Islamic spin-off. In 1795 he became professor of Arabic at the re-opened by the National Assembly École Spéciale des Langues orientales in Paris, but was - because he refused to swear the oath anti-royalist - not considered until 1803 as a full member of the teaching staff.

1801 came his son Samuel Ustazade to the world in the field of journalism and literature of later achieved great fame. After the period of revolutionary turmoil and his appointment as professor of Persian language at the Collège de France in Paris in 1806, he was two years later a member of the legislature. 1813 the title of Baron, he was awarded, and the restoration time with her return to monarchy allowed de Sacy to engage in even more political, so he agreed, among others, for Napoleon's deposition. During the second phase of restoration - after Napoleon's return and defeat in 1815 - was de Sacy member of the public education committee of the Royal Council and later received a place in the management of the Collège de France and the École Spéciale des langues orientales. Together with Abel Rémusat 1822 he founded the Societe asiatique, whose first president he was, and prompted the establishment of new chairs for Asian languages, including Sanskrit and Chinese at the Collège de France.

After the first restoration he was censor, it is also a member of the Commission for Public Instruction, 1831 Curator of Manuscripts at the Royal Library and the following year a member of the Chamber of Peers. He unfurled a highly important teaching, through which he made ​​Paris several decades through to the center of Oriental studies in Europe; also most German Arabists of the older generation have been de Sacys students.

Despite many other obligations, for example in the royal printing house and at the Académie des inscriptions et belles - lettres, he published further results of its research and shared his knowledge through tireless teaching in the subjects of Arabic and Persian continued until his death on February 21 of the year 1838 in Paris. In addition to awarding of honorary medals and honorary memberships in life, such as the Légion d' honneur, the Royal Society of Sciences in Göttingen, the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences, the Bavarian Academy of Sciences, 1907, a street on the Champs de Mars in Paris Avenue Silvestre de Sacy named.

Work

Silvestre de Sacy is one of the most important French philologist of the 19th century. He shaped the development of the young science of Oriental Studies with decisive and made Paris at its center. His textbooks on Arabic language were to the 20th century as standard works. His ideological proximity to Jansenism, was the intellectual center of the monastery of Port Royal, and according to Descartes developed by the local grammar school Cartesian Linguistics, comes from his later linguists like Noam Chomsky famous made ​​in the 20th century view that all languages ​​a universal rules " règles générales de la métaphysique du langage " ( Silvestre de Sacy A.-I., preface to Grammaire arabe ) is based.

He was one of the co-editor of the 1816 reissued oldest scientific journal in the world, the Journal des savants, whose reputation and sales figures he increased by his many contributions. In this and several other magazines, such as mines of the Orient (edited by Joseph von Hammer- Purgstall in Vienna and reading of Johann Wolfgang Goethe, who was one of the inspirations for his 1819 published collection of poems West-Eastern Divan ), found by him a total of about 400 posts.

To his more popular work among Silvestre de Sacys groundwork for deciphering the demotic characters on the Rosetta Stone, as well as a treatise on the origin of the Tales of 1001 Nights, in which he their Arab origin proved by the time of the 15th century in the majority. In addition to numerous French editions and collections of the rich literature of the oriental languages ​​, he made Arabic and Syriac translations of the New Testament for which was founded in 1804 British and Foreign Bible Society.

Despite the criticism of a few contemporaries that he is merely limited to the mastery of the written language and " Arab with a book in hand talk " can, according to the Egyptian student travelers Azhar Sheikh Rifa'a Rafi 'al- Tahtawi (quoted in Haarmann (ed.): Islam - A Reader book, Munich 1994, p 264) is to be among his greatest achievements, especially his teaching, have emerged from the other generations of Orientalists. With him also studied numerous, who later became renowned German Orientalists like William Freytag, Johann Gottfried Ludwig Kosegarten, Heinrich Leberecht Fleischer and Gustav Weil.

Approximately 400 essays, reviews, etc. from him can be found in various journals. Very valuable is the catalog of its excellent in terms of oriental literature library (Paris 1842-44 ).

Works (selection)

• Mémoires sur l' histoire des Arabes avant Mahomet, Paris: 1785
• Mémoires sur diverses antiquités de la Perse, Paris: 1793
• Principes de Grammaire générale, mis à la portée of enfans, et servir d' introduction propres à à l' étude de toutes les langues, Paris: 1799, 8th edition 1852 ( digitized )
• Chrestomathie arabe ou extraits de divers écrivains arabes: en prose tant qu ' en vers, à l' usage de l' École Spéciale of élèves des Langues Orientales vivantes, 3 vols, Paris: 1806; 2nd edition 1826; Paris: 2008, ISBN 978-2-13-057157-5; Tunis: 2008; Biblio Verlag, Osnabrück: 1973 ( digitized version of the 1st edition (1806 ), digitized version of the 2nd edition (1826 ) )
• Grammaire arabe à l' usage de l' École Spéciale of élèves des Langues Orientales Vivantes: avec figures, 2 vols, Paris: 1810; 2nd edition 1831
• Mémoire sur les monuments de Kirmanshah ou Bisutun, Paris: 1815 (see Behistun inscription )
• Mémoires d' histoire et de littérature orientales, Paris: 1818 ( it contain a remarkable article, " Mémoire sur la dynasty of the Assassins et sur ​​l' étimologie de leur nom ", p.322 -403 )
• Anthology grammaticale arabe ou choisis morceaux de divers grammairiens et scholiastes arabes ..., Paris: 1829
• Expose de la religion of the Druzes, 2 vols, debure, Paris: 1838

Further works are available on the project Gallica.

Translations ( selection)

• Mīr Ḫwānd, Histoire des Rois de Perse de la dynasty of Sassanides, 1793
• Aḥmad ibn Alī al - Maqrizi, Traité des monnoies Musulmanes, 1797
• Abd -al- Latif al - Baghdadi, Relation arabe sur l' Egypte, Paris: 1810
• Bidpai, Calila et Dimna ou fables de Bidpai, 1816
• Farid ad -Din ' Attar, Pend - Nameh: ou Le Livre des conseils, translated and edited by Silvestre de Sacy, debure, Paris 1819
• Al- Qāsim Ibn - Alī al -Hariri, Les séances de Hariri, Paris: 1822
• Ǵāmi, Nūr -ad -Din Abd ar - Rahmaan -, Vie des Soufis ou les haleines de la familiarité, Paris: Imprimerie royale, 1831; reissued at Allard, Paris 1977
• Yehuda Ben- Šelomo al - Harizi, Extrait du Sefer Tahkémoni, 1833