Joseph Héliodore Garcin de Tassy

Joseph Héliodore Sagesse Vertu Garcin de Tassy (25 January 1794, Marseille – 2 September 1878) was a French orientalist. Garcin de Tassy was born in 1794 in Marseille to a family of merchants. He started learning Arabic at the age of 20 after meeting his father's business partners from Egypt. He left for Paris in 1817 where he studied oriental languages under Silvestre de Sacy and was awarded professorship for Indology at the School for Living Oriental Languages, that was founded for him. In 1838 he was elected to the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres. and was one of the founders and later president of the Société Asiatique. Garcin first received prominence through general works on Islam and translations from the Arabic, namely L'Islamisme d'aprés le Coran (3. Ed., Par. 1874), La poésie philosophique et religieuse chez les Persans (4. Ed. 1864, 3 Vols.) and the Allégories, récits poétiques etc. (2. Ed. 1877). Later, he devoted himself to the study of the Hindustani language, where he was reputed as Europe's first capacity. His major works in this area are; Mémoires sur les particularités de la religion musulmane dans l'Inde (1832); Les aventures de Kamrup (translation, 1834); translations of works by the poet Wali (1834); the Histoire de la littérature hindoue e hindoustani (2. Ed. 1871, 3 Vols.); Rudiments de la langue hindouie (1847); Rhétorique et prosodie des langues de l'Orient musulman (1848, 2. Ed. 1873); Chrestomathie hindie et hindouie (1849); La doctrine de l'amour (translation from Hindi, 1859); Cours d'hindoustani (1870) and La langue et la littérature hindoustanies 1850-69 (2. Ed. 1874), to which he added since 1870 a yearly revue under the same title. Les Oiseaux et les Fleurs, allégories morales d'Azz-eddin Elmocaddessi, publiées en arabe avec une traduction et des notes (1821) Exposition de la foi musulmane, traduite du turc de Mohammed ben Pir-Ali Elberkevi, avec des notes, par M. Garcin de Tassy, suivie du Pend-Nameh, poème de Saadi, traduit du persan par le même, et du Borda, poème à la louange de Mahomet, traduit de l'arabe (1822 ; 1828).