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Johann David Michaelis
Image: Unknown author, Public domain · Wikimedia Commons

Johann David Michaelis

يوهان ديفيد ميخائيليس

Notable figure 1717–1791 · Source: Johann Fück, Tarikh harakat al-istishraq (Die arabischen Studien in Europa), trans. ʿUmar Lutfi al-ʿAlim, 2nd ed., Dar al-Madar al-Islami, Beirut 2001, p. ٧١، ١١٩–١٢٠ · Second source: Deutsche Biographie (NDB, ADB): Michaelis, Johann David (1717–1791), GND 118783726

Field: Grammar

Affiliation

German Arabic grammar after Erpenius, with reader (1771)

Biography

Born in Halle, he taught Hebrew, Arabic, Syriac and exegesis at Göttingen from 1745. He put Erpenius's grammar into German in shortened form, with an Arabic reader (Göttingen, 1771), then enlarged it until the 1781 edition appeared as his own, with an essay on Arabic taste. He conceived the Danish expedition to Arabia (1761), from which only Niebuhr returned, and wrote its instructions.