Sacy, ANTOINE ISAAC, BARON SILVESTRE DE, the founder of the modern school of scientific Arabists, was born at Paris on 21st September 1758. He was trained for the civil service, and whilst labouring in the Mint he made himself master of the chief Semitic languages, as well as Persian, and to some extent of Turkish. He had already gained the reputation of a sound Oriental scholar through papers contributed to Eichhorn's Repertorium and other learned journals, when the excesses of the republicans caused him to retire from government service, and devote himself wholly to his favourite pursuits. He published in 1793 his first ambitious work, a translation of the Persian Annales de Mirkhond along with Mémoires sur Diverses Antiquités de la Perse. Two years later he was called to fill the chair of Arabic in the newly-founded Institute of Oriental Languages; and to this he added in 1806 the duties appertaining to the professorship of Persian. He held besides several public appointments, nearly all simultaneously with his professorships, such as that of a member of the Corps Législatif (1808), rector of the university of Paris (1815), perpetual secretary of the Academy of Inscriptions, founder and member of the Asiatic Society, and member of the Chamber of Peers. As a teacher he was held in the very highest esteem; he wrote valuable text-books—Grammaire Arabe (2 vols. 1810), the fruits of fifteen years' labour; Chrestomathie Arabe (3 vols. 1806), and its supplement, Anthologie Grammaticale (1829)—which helped to train many of the best Arabic scholars of the 19th century; and he himself had for his pupils several of the best teachers of that language who laboured in both France and Germany in succeeding years. He died in Paris on 21st February 1838. Besides the works quoted and alluded to he also published Abd-Allatif's Relation de l'Égypte (1810), an edition of the tales of Bidpai (Calila et Dimna, 1816), Farid ed-Din Attar's Pendnameh (1819), Hariri's Makamat (1822), Exposé de la Religion des Druses (1838), &c. See Reinaud, Notice . . . de Baron Silvestre de Saey (1838).
His son, SAMUEL USTAZADE SILVESTRE DE SACY (1801-79), a journalist, was long one of the leading writers on the staff of the Journal des Débats, and in 1864 was appointed a member of the Council of Public Instruction. In 1855 he was elected a member of the Academy, and in 1867 of the senate. In 1858 he published a collection of his literary articles as Variétés Littéraires, Morales, et Historiques (2 vols.); and he edited in 1861-64 the Letters of Madame de Sévigné in 11 volumes.