Joseph Héliodore Sagesse Vertu Garcin de Tassy (January 25, 1794, Marseille

Marseille

Marseille , known in antiquity as Massalia , is the second largest city in France, after Paris, with a population of 852,395 within its administrative limits on a land area of . The urban area of Marseille extends beyond the city limits with a population of over 1,420,000 on an area of...

 - September 2, 1878) was a French

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 orientalist.

He studied under Silvestre de Sacy

Silvestre de Sacy

Antoine Isaac, Baron Silvestre de Sacy , was a French linguist and orientalist. His son, Ustazade Silvestre de Sacy, became a journalist.-Early life:...

 oriental languages and was awarded professorship for Indology

Indology

Indology is the academic study of the history and cultures, languages, and literature of the Indian subcontinent , and as such is a subset of Asian studies....

 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

Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres

The Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres is a French learned society devoted to the humanities, founded in February 1663 as one of the five academies of the Institut de France.-History:...

. and was one of the founders and later president of the Société Asiatique.

Garcin first received prominence through general works on Islam

Islam

Islam . The most common are and .   : Arabic pronunciation varies regionally. The first vowel ranges from ~~. The second vowel ranges from ~~~...

 and translations from the Arabic

Arabic language

Arabic is a name applied to the descendants of the Classical Arabic language of the 6th century AD, used most prominently in the Quran, the Islamic Holy Book...

, 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 himselft to the study of the Hindi

Hindi

Standard Hindi, or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi, also known as Manak Hindi , High Hindi, Nagari Hindi, and Literary Hindi, is a standardized and sanskritized register of the Hindustani language derived from the Khariboli dialect of Delhi...

 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

Wali

Walī , is an Arabic word meaning "custodian", "protector", "sponsor", or authority as denoted by its definition "crown". "Wali" is someone who has "Walayah" over somebody else. For example, in Fiqh the father is wali of his children. In Islam, the phrase ولي الله walīyu 'llāh...

(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.