Étienne Fourmont | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Born | (1683-06-23)23 June 1683 | ||||||
| Died | 8 December 1745(1745-12-08) (aged 62) | ||||||
| Alma mater | Collège Mazarin | ||||||
| Scientific career | |||||||
| Fields | Arabic,Hebrew,Chinese | ||||||
| Institutions | Collège de France | ||||||
| Chinese name | |||||||
| Traditional Chinese | 傅爾蒙 | ||||||
| |||||||
Étienne Fourmont (23 June 1683 – 8 December 1745) was a French scholar andOrientalist who served as professor ofArabic at theCollège de France and published grammars on the Arabic, Hebrew, and Chinese languages.
Although Fourmont is remembered as a pioneeringsinologist who did careful and influential work on the nature ofChinese characters, his legacy is significantly tarnished by the fact that he earned his early reputation by stealing the work ofArcadius Huang, whom he had helped catalog the royal sinological collection, and that he frequently plagiarized the works of other scholars.[1]
Born atHerblay nearArgenteuil, he studied at theCollège Mazarin in Paris and afterwards in theCollège Montaigu where his attention was attracted toOriental languages. Shortly after leaving the college he published aTraduction du commentaire du Rabbin Abraham A ben Esra sur l'Ecclésiaste.[2]
In 1711Louis XIV appointed Fourmont to assistArcadius Huang, a Catholic Chinese convert, in cataloging the French royal collection of works in Chinese and compiling a Chinese dictionary. One day, Fourmont was discovered copying Huang's work, and after Huang's death there was suspicion that Fourmont had not given Huang adequate credit.[3] Huang died in 1716, and Fourmont immediately appropriated his work for himself.[4][5] He completed Huang's catalogue and published it in Paris in 1737 asCatalogus Codicum Manuscriptorum Bibliothecae Regiae (Royal Library Catalog of Manuscripts).[4] He also wroteRéflexions critiques sur les histoires des anciens peuples (1735), and several dissertations printed in theMemoires of the Academy of Inscriptions.[6] Fourmont's most notable work was his 1737 grammar of Chinese:Linguae Sinarum mandarinicae hieroglyphicae grammatical duplex patine et cum characteribus Sinensium. This work is simply a copy ofFrancisco Varo's earlier Chinese grammar, with the addition of Chinese characters.[1]
He became professor ofArabic in theCollège de France in 1715. In 1713 he was elected a member of theAcademy of Inscriptions, in 1738 a member of theRoyal Society of London, and in 1742 a member of that of Berlin. He died at Paris on 8 December 1745.
His brother,Michel Fourmont (1690–1746), was also a member of the Academy of Inscriptions, and professor of theSyriac language in the Royal College.
This article incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Fourmont, Étienne".Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 10 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 758.