Louis Mathieu Langlès

Louis-Mathieu Langlès (23 August 1763 – 28 January 1824) was a French academic, philologist, linguist, translator, author, librarian and orientalist. He was the conservator of the oriental manuscripts at the Bibliothèque Nationale in Napoleonic France and he held the same position at the renamed Bibliothèque du Roi after the fall of the empire.

Langlès was born in 1763 in Pérennes, a section of the commune of Welles-Pérennes in the department of the Oise. His youthful efforts to obtain a military position were unsuccessful. Instead, he went to Paris where he enrolled at the Collège de France, studying Arabic and Persian.

Along with Antoine Léonard de Chézy (1773–1832), Jean-François Champollion (1790–1832) and Jean-Pierre Abel-Rémusat (1788–1832), Langlès was a pupil and protégé of Silvestre de Sacy (1758–1838). Langlès close links with the Collège de France were enhanced by Baron de Sacy's support, which also resulted in Chézy becoming the Collège's first Professor of Sanskrit, Rémusat becoming its first Professor of Chinese, and Champollion becoming its first Professor of Egyptology. The faculty encompassed Langlès as the college's Professor of Persian.

In 1785, he was attached to the Tribunal of the Marshals of France, which was at that time charged with suppressing duels.

In 1795, Langlès became the founder-director the Ecole des langues orientales vivantes in Paris, which is still operating under the revised name of Institut national des langues et civilisations orientales (INALCO).

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