Albert Schultens
Dutch philologist (1686-1750)
Albert Schultens (Dutch: [ˈɑlbərt ˈsxʏltəns]; 1686 – 26 January 1750) was a Dutch philologist.
Biography
He was born at Groningen, where he studied for the church. He went on to the University of Leiden, applying himself specially to Hebrew and the cognate tongues. His thesis Dissertatio theologico-philologica de utilitate linguae Arabicae in interpretenda sacra lingua ("The Use of Arabic in the Interpretation of Scripture") appeared in 1706. After a visit to Reland in Utrecht, he returned to Groningen (1708); then, having taken his degree in theology (1709), he returned to Leiden, and devoted himself to the study of the manuscript collections there until 1711, when he became pastor at Wassenaer.
He disdained parochial work and decided to accept the Hebrew chair at Franeker in 1713. He held this position until 1729, when he was transferred to Leiden as rector of the collegium theologicum, or seminary for poor students. From 1732 until his death (at Leiden) he was professor of Oriental languages at Leiden.
Schultens was the chief teacher of the Arabic language in the whole of the Europe during his lifetime. In some sense, he revived Arabic studies.
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This entry incorporates text from “Albert Schultens” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.