Friedrich Spiegel (July 11, 1820, Kitzingen

Kitzingen

Kitzingen is a town in the German state of Bavaria, capital of the district Kitzingen. It is part of Franconia geographical region and has around 21,000 inhabitants.Surrounded by vineyards, Kitzingen County is the largest wine producer in Bavaria...

 - December 15, 1905, München) was a German orientalist

Oriental studies

Oriental 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 subject has often been turned into the newer terms of Asian studies and Middle Eastern studies...

. He was one of the pioneers in the field of Iran

Iran

Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran , is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran" has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia...

ian philology

Philology

Philology is the study of language in written historical sources; it is a combination of literary studies, history and linguistics.Classical philology is the philology of Greek and Classical Latin...

.

Biography

He was born in Kitzingen

Kitzingen

Kitzingen is a town in the German state of Bavaria, capital of the district Kitzingen. It is part of Franconia geographical region and has around 21,000 inhabitants.Surrounded by vineyards, Kitzingen County is the largest wine producer in Bavaria...

, studied at Erlangen, Leipzig

University of Leipzig

The University of Leipzig , located in Leipzig in the Free State of Saxony, Germany, is one of the oldest universities in the world and the second-oldest university in Germany...

, and Bonn

University of Bonn

The University of Bonn is a public research university located in Bonn, Germany. Founded in its present form in 1818, as the linear successor of earlier academic institutions, the University of Bonn is today one of the leading universities in Germany. The University of Bonn offers a large number...

, then spent five years in the libraries of Copenhagen

Copenhagen

Copenhagen is the capital and largest city of Denmark, with an urban population of 1,199,224 and a metropolitan population of 1,930,260 . With the completion of the transnational Øresund Bridge in 2000, Copenhagen has become the centre of the increasingly integrating Øresund Region...

, Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

, London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

, and Oxford

Oxford

The city of Oxford is the county town of Oxfordshire, England. The city, made prominent by its medieval university, has a population of just under 165,000, with 153,900 living within the district boundary. It lies about 50 miles north-west of London. The rivers Cherwell and Thames run through...

, and from 1849 to 1890 was professor of oriental languages in the University of Erlangen. His early studies on Pali

Páli

- External links :* *...

 and the publication of the Kammavâkya (1841) and the Ancedota Palica (1845) did much for the knowledge of southern Buddhism

Buddhism

Buddhism is a religion and philosophy encompassing a variety of traditions, beliefs and practices, largely based on teachings attributed to Siddhartha Gautama, commonly known as the Buddha . The Buddha lived and taught in the northeastern Indian subcontinent some time between the 6th and 4th...

. They were quickly followed by his researches on Zoroastrianism

Zoroastrianism

Zoroastrianism is a religion and philosophy based on the teachings of prophet Zoroaster and was formerly among the world's largest religions. It was probably founded some time before the 6th century BCE in Greater Iran.In Zoroastrianism, the Creator Ahura Mazda is all good, and no evil...

 and the Avesta

Avesta

The Avesta is the primary collection of sacred texts of Zoroastrianism, composed in the Avestan language.-Early transmission:The texts of the Avesta — which are all in the Avestan language — were composed over the course of several hundred years. The most important portion, the Gathas,...

. The edition of the greater part of the extant Avesta, together with the Pahlavi

Parthian language

The Parthian language, also known as Arsacid Pahlavi and Pahlavanik, is a now-extinct ancient Northwestern Iranian language spoken in Parthia, a region of northeastern ancient Persia during the rule of the Parthian empire....

 translation (1853-58), was followed by a German version (1852-63), and supplemented by a commentary (1865-69). He published a number of Persian works, as well as grammars of the Old Persian and Old Bactrian language

Bactrian language

The Bactrian language is an extinct Eastern Iranian language which was spoken in the Central Asian region of Bactria. Linguistically, it is classified as belonging to the middle period of the East Iranian branch...

s. Then came the valuable linguistic and archaeological works, Die altpersischen Keilinschriften (1862), Erân (1863), Erânische Altertumskunde (1871-78), Vergleichende Grammatik der alterânischen Sprachen (1882), and Die arische Periode und ihre Zustände (1887).

Literary works

• Kammavâkya (Bonn, 1841)
• Anecdota palica (Leipzig, 1845)
• Kommentar über das Avesta (Leipzig, 1865-69, 2 vols.)
• Grammatik der altbaktrischen Sprache (Leipzig, 1867)
• Chrestomathia persica (Leipzig, 1845)
• Grammatik der Pârsisprache (Leipzig, 1851)
• Einleitung in die traditionellen Schriften der Parsen (Leipzig, 1856-60, 2 vols.)
• Die altpersischen Keilinschriften im Grundtext, mit Übersetzung, Grammatik und Glossar (Leipzig, 1862, 2nd ed. 1881)
• Erân, das Land zwischen dem Indus und Tigris (Berlin, 1863)
• Arische Studien (Leipzig, 1873)
• Erânischen Altertumskunde (Leipzig, 1871-78, 3 vols.)
• Vergleichende Grammatik der alterânischen Sprachen (Leipzig, 1882)
• Die arische Periode und ihre Zustände (Leipzig, 1887)
• “Beiträgen zur vergleichenden Sprachforschung,” in the Zeitschrift der deutschen morgenländischen Gesellschaft

External links