BENFEY, THEODOR (1809-1881)

This article appears in Volume V03, Page 729 of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

Encyclopedia Britannica - Main :: BEC-BER

BENFEY, THEODOR (1809-1881) , German philologist, son of a Jewish trader at Norten, near Gottingen, was born on the 28th of January 1809. Although originally designed for the medical profession, his

taste

TASTE (from Lat. taxare, to touch sharply; tangere, to touch)

for philology was awakened by a careful instruction in Hebrew which he received from his father. After brilliant studies at Gottingen he spent a year at

Munich

MUNICH (Ger. Munchen)

, where he was greatly impressed by the lectures of Schelling and Thiersch, and afterwards settled as a teacher in Frankfort. His pursuits were at first chiefly classical, and his attention was diverted to Sanskrit by an accidental wager that he would learn enough of
the language in a few weeks to be able to

review

REVIEW (Fr. revue, from revoir, to see again, Lat. re and videre)

a new book upon it. This feat he accomplished, and rivalled in later years when he learned Russian in order to translate V. P. Vasilev's

work

WORK

on Buddhism. For the time, however, his labours were chiefly in classical and Semitic philology. At Gottingen, whither he had returned as privat-docent, he wrote a little

work

WORK

on the names of the Hebrew months, proving that they were derived from the Persian, prepared the

great

GREAT

article on India in Ersch and Grtiber's Encyclopaedia, and published from 1839 to 1842 the Lexicon of Greek Roots which gained him the Volney prize of the Institute of France. From this time his attention was principally given to Sanskrit. He published in 1848 his edition of the Sama-veda; in 18521854 his

Manual

MANUAL

of Sanskrit, comprising a grammar and chrestomathy; in 1858 his

practical

PRACTICAL

Sanskrit grammar, after-wards translated into English; and in 1859 his edition of the Pantscha Tantra, with an extensive dissertation on the fables and mythologies of primitive nations. All these works had been produced under the pressure of poverty, the government, whether from parsimony or from prejudice against a Jew, refusing to make any substantial addition to his small salary as extra-professor at the university. At length, in 1862, the growing appreciation of foreign scholars shamed it into making him an

ordinary

ORDINARY (med. Lat. ordinarius, Fr. ordinaire)

professor, and in 1866 Benfey published the laborious work by which he is on the whole best known, his

great

GREAT

Sanskrit-English Dictionary. In 1869 he wrote a history of German philological research, especially Oriental, during the 19th century. In 1878 his

jubilee

JUBILEE (or JUBILE), YEAR OF

doctor

DOCTOR (Lat. for " teacher ")

was celebrated by the publication of a volume of philological essays dedicated to him and written by the first scholars in Germany. He had designed to close his literary labours by a grammar of Vedic Sanskrit, and was actively preparing it when he was interrupted by illness, which terminated in his death at Gottingen on the 26th of June 1881.
A collection of his various writings was published in 1890, prefaced by a memoir by his son.

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