Arsène Darmesteter (5 January 1846,

Château-Salins Château-Salins (; , from 1941–44 ''Salzburgen'') is a commune in the Moselle department in Grand Est in north-eastern France. Until 2015, Château-Salins was a subprefecture of the Moselle department. History The town is relatively recent. ...

Moselle The Moselle ( , ; german: Mosel ; lb, Musel ) is a river that rises in the Vosges mountains and flows through north-eastern France and Luxembourg to western Germany. It is a bank (geography), left bank tributary of the Rhine, which it jo ...

16 November 1888,

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

) was a distinguished French

philologist Philology () is the study of language in oral and written historical sources; it is the intersection of textual criticism, literary criticism, history, and linguistics (with especially strong ties to etymology). Philology is also defined as th ...

and man of letters.

Biography

He studied under

Gaston Paris Bruno Paulin Gaston Paris (; 9 August 1839 – 5 March 1903) was a French literary historian, philologist, and scholar specialized in Romance studies and medieval French literature. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1901, 19 ...

at the

École pratique des hautes études The École pratique des hautes études (), abbreviated EPHE, is a Grand Établissement in Paris, France. It is highly selective, and counted among France's most prestigious research and higher education institutions. It is a constituent college o ...

, and became professor of

Old French language Old French (, , ; Modern French: ) was the language spoken in most of the northern half of France from approximately the 8th to the 14th centuries. Rather than a unified language, Old French was a linkage of Romance dialects, mutually intelligibl ...

and literature at the

Sorbonne Sorbonne may refer to: * Sorbonne (building), historic building in Paris, which housed the University of Paris and is now shared among multiple universities. *the University of Paris (c. 1150 – 1970) *one of its components or linked institution, ...

, where he met his wife, the painter Héléna Hartog. His ''Life of Words'' appeared in English in 1888. He also collaborated with Adolphe Hatzfeld in a ''Dictionnaire général de la langue française'' (2 vols., 1895-1900). Among his most important work was the elucidation of Old French by means of the many glosses in the medieval writings of

Rashi Shlomo Yitzchaki ( he, רבי שלמה יצחקי; la, Salomon Isaacides; french: Salomon de Troyes, 22 February 1040 – 13 July 1105), today generally known by the acronym Rashi (see below), was a medieval French rabbi and author of a compre ...

and other French Jews. His scattered papers on

Romance Romance (from Vulgar Latin , "in the Roman language", i.e., "Latin") may refer to: Common meanings * Romance (love), emotional attraction towards another person and the courtship behaviors undertaken to express the feelings * Romance languages, ...

and Jewish philology were collected by

James Darmesteter James Darmesteter (28 March 184919 October 1894) was a French author, orientalist, and antiquarian. Biography He was born of Jewish parents at Château-Salins, in Lorraine. The family name had originated in their earlier home of Darmstadt. He was ...

as ''Arsène Darmesteter, reliques scientifiques'' (2 vols., 1890). His valuable ''Cours de grammaire historique de la langue française'' was edited after his death by E. Muret and L. Sudre (1891-1895; English edition, 1902).

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Darmesteter, Arsene 1846 births 1888 deaths People from Moselle (department) 19th-century French Jews Academic staff of the University of Paris French philologists École Nationale des Chartes alumni