Jacob Samuel Speyer (20 December 1849 – 1 November 1913) was a Dutch

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 translator from

Sanskrit Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had diffused there from the northwest in the late ...

Biography

Born to a

Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

family in

Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Amstel'') is the Capital of the Netherlands, capital and Municipalities of the Netherlands, most populous city of the Netherlands, with The Hague being the seat of government. It has a population ...

, Jacob Samuel Speyer first attended the Gymnasium before joining the Athenaeum Illustre at the age of not yet 16. He afterwards studied

classics Classics or classical studies is the study of classical antiquity. In the Western world, classics traditionally refers to the study of Classical Greek and Roman literature and their related original languages, Ancient Greek and Latin. Classics ...

for three years, and then

at the

University of Leiden Leiden University (abbreviated as ''LEI''; nl, Universiteit Leiden) is a public research university in Leiden, Netherlands. The university was founded as a Protestant university in 1575 by William, Prince of Orange, as a reward to the city of Le ...

, from where he awarded a

Ph.D. A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields. Because it is a ...

on 21 December 1872. Speyer thereafter officiated as teacher at

Hoorn Hoorn () is a city and municipality in the northwest of the Netherlands, in the province of North Holland. It is the largest town and the traditional capital of the region of West Friesland. Hoorn is located on the Markermeer, 20 kilometers ( ...

and (1873–1888) at the gymnasium of Amsterdam. On 15 October 1877, he was appointed lecturer in Sanskrit and

comparative philology Comparative linguistics, or comparative-historical linguistics (formerly comparative philology) is a branch of historical linguistics that is concerned with comparing languages to establish their historical relatedness. Genetic relatedness i ...

at the University of Amsterdam, and he was about to receive a professorship there when he was called to Gröningen as professor of Latin in December 1888. He held this chair until 20 March 1903, when he was appointed to succeed his former teacher Hendrik Kern as professor of Sanskrit at the University of Leiden. Among other publications, Speyer was the author of an English translation of the '' Jatakamala'', which appeared as the first volume of

Max Müller Friedrich Max Müller (; 6 December 1823 – 28 October 1900) was a German-born philologist and Orientalist, who lived and studied in Britain for most of his life. He was one of the founders of the western academic disciplines of Indian ...

's ''Sacred Books of the Buddhists'', as well as an English version of the ''

Avadanasataka The Avadānaśataka or "Century of Noble Deeds (Avadāna)" is an anthology in Sanskrit of one hundred Buddhist legends, approximately dating to the same time as the Ashokavadana The Ashokavadana ( sa, अशोकावदान; ; "Narrative o ...

''. He was a member of the Royal Academy of Arts and Sciences from 1889, and a knight of the

Order of the Netherlands Lion The Order of the Netherlands Lion, also known as the Order of the Lion of the Netherlands ( nl, De Orde van de Nederlandse Leeuw, french: L'Ordre du Lion Néerlandais) is a Dutch order of chivalry founded by King William I of the Netherlands on ...

. From 1893 to 1904 he was editor of the ''Museum''.

Partial bibliography

* * Program of the Gymnasium of Amsterdam. * * * * * * * * * * * *

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Speyer, Jacob Samuel 1849 births 1913 deaths 19th-century philologists Dutch academic administrators Dutch Jews Dutch philologists Dutch Sanskrit scholars Jewish linguists Leiden University faculty Members of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences Sanskrit–English translators University of Amsterdam faculty University of Groningen faculty