“ He was educated in Paris, where, under the guidance of Michel Bréal and Abel Bergaigne, he imbibed a love for Oriental studies, to which for a time he entirely devoted himself. He was a man of vast intellectual range. In 1875 he published a thesis on the mythology of the Zend Avesta, and in 1877 became teacher of Zend at the École des Hautes Études. ”

“ He studied under Gaston Paris at the École des Hautes Études, and became professor of Old French language and literature at the Sorbonne. His Life of Words appeared in English in 1888. He also collaborated with Adolphe Hatzfeld in a Dictionnaire général de la langue française (2 vols., 1895–1900) . Among his most important work was the elucidation of Old French by means of the many glosses in the medieval writings of Rashi and other French Jews. ”

“ DARMESTETER, JAMES (1849–1894) , French author and antiquarian, was born of Jewish parents on the 28th of March 1849 at Château Salins, in Alsace. The family name had originated in their earlier home of Darmstadt. ”