Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Freytag (September 19, 1788 – November 16, 1861) was a German

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 philologist.

Freytag was born in Lüneburg

Lüneburg

Lüneburg is a town in the German state of Lower Saxony. It is located about southeast of fellow Hanseatic city Hamburg. It is part of the Hamburg Metropolitan Region, and one of Hamburg's inner suburbs...

. After attending school he entered the University of Göttingen as a student of philology and theology

Theology

Theology is the systematic and rational study of religion and its influences and of the nature of religious truths, or the learned profession acquired by completing specialized training in religious studies, usually at a university or school of divinity or seminary.-Definition:Augustine of Hippo...

; here from 1811 to 1813 he acted as a theological tutor, but in the latter year accepted an appointment as sub-librarian at Königsberg

Königsberg

Königsberg was the capital of East Prussia from the Late Middle Ages until 1945 as well as the northernmost and easternmost German city with 286,666 inhabitants . Due to the multicultural society in and around the city, there are several local names for it...

. In 1815 he became a chaplain

Chaplain

Traditionally, a chaplain is a minister in a specialized setting such as a priest, pastor, rabbi, or imam or lay representative of a religion attached to a secular institution such as a hospital, prison, military unit, police department, university, or private chapel...

 in the Prussian army

Prussian Army

The Royal Prussian Army was the army of the Kingdom of Prussia. It was vital to the development of Brandenburg-Prussia as a European power.The Prussian Army had its roots in the meager mercenary forces of Brandenburg during the Thirty Years' War...

, and in that capacity visited 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...

.

On the proclamation of peace Freytag resigned his chaplaincy, and returned to his researches in Arabic

Arabic language

Arabic is a name applied to the descendants of the Classical Arabic language of the 6th century AD, used most prominently in the Quran, the Islamic Holy Book...

, Persian

Persian language

Persian is an Iranian language within the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European languages. It is primarily spoken in Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan and countries which historically came under Persian influence...

, and Turkish

Turkish language

Turkish is a language spoken as a native language by over 83 million people worldwide, making it the most commonly spoken of the Turkic languages. Its speakers are located predominantly in Turkey and Northern Cyprus with smaller groups in Iraq, Greece, Bulgaria, the Republic of Macedonia, Kosovo,...

, studying at Paris under Silvestre de Sacy

Silvestre de Sacy

Antoine Isaac, Baron Silvestre de Sacy , was a French linguist and orientalist. His son, Ustazade Silvestre de Sacy, became a journalist.-Early life:...

. In 1819 he was appointed to the professorship of oriental languages in the new University of 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...

, and this post he continued to hold until his death.

Besides a compendium of Hebrew grammar

Hebrew language

Hebrew is a Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Culturally, is it considered by Jews and other religious groups as the language of the Jewish people, though other Jewish languages had originated among diaspora Jews, and the Hebrew language is also used by non-Jewish groups, such...

 (Kurzgefasste Grammatik der hebräischen Sprache, 1835), and a treatise on Arabic versification (Darstellung der arabischen Verskunst, 1830), Freytag edited two volumes of Arabic songs (Hamasae carmina, 1828-1852) and three of Arabic proverbs (Arabum proverbia, 1838-1843), and parts of Ibn al-Adim

Ibn al-Adim

Kamal al-Din ʻUmar ibn Aḥmad Ibn al-Adim was a biographer and historian from Aleppo. He is best known for his work Bughyat al-ṭalab fī tārīkh Ḥalab , a multi-volume collection of biographies of famous men from Aleppo, introduced with a volume on the...

's history of Aleppo

Aleppo

Aleppo is the largest city in Syria and the capital of Aleppo Governorate, the most populous Syrian governorate. With an official population of 2,301,570 , expanding to over 2.5 million in the metropolitan area, it is also one of the largest cities in the Levant...

(Selecta ex Historia Halebi, 1819).

Freytag's principal work was the laborious and praiseworthy Lexicon Arabicolatinum (Halle, 1830-1837), an abridgment of which was published in 1837.