Arsène Darmesteter was a distinguished philologist and man of letters.

He studied under Gaston Paris at the École des Hautes Etudes, and became professor of Old French language and literature at the Sorbonne

University of Paris

The University of Paris was a university located in Paris, France and one of the earliest to be established in Europe. It was founded in the mid 12th century, and officially recognized as a university probably between 1160 and 1250...

. 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

Rashi

Shlomo Yitzhaki , or in Latin Salomon Isaacides, and today generally known by the acronym Rashi , was a medieval French rabbi famed as the author of a comprehensive commentary on the Talmud, as well as a comprehensive commentary on the Tanakh...

 and other French Jews.

His scattered papers on romance and Jewish philology were collected by James Darmesteter

James Darmesteter

James Darmesteter was a French author, orientalist, and antiquarian.He was born of Jewish parents at Château-Salins, in Alsace. The family name had originated in their earlier home of Darmstadt...

 as Arsène Darmesteter, reliques scientifiques (2 vols., 1890). His valuable Cours de grammaire historique de la langue française was edited after his death by E Muret and L Sudre (1891-1895; English edition, 1902).
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