Sprenger, ALOYS

Sprenger, ALOYS, orientalist, was born 3d September 1813 at Nassereit in the Tyrol, studied medicine, the natural sciences, and the oriental languages at Vienna, next at London assisted Count Münster, and in 1843 sailed to Calcutta. He was teacher, interpreter, librarian, and translator in turn, until in 1857 he became professor of Oriental Languages at Bern. In 1881 he settled at Heidelberg, and he died 19th December 1893. His rich collection of Arabic, Persian, Hindustani, and other MSS. and books are now in the Royal Library at Berlin. The most important of Sprenger's numerous works are Leben und Lehre des Mohammed (3 vols. 1861–65), Die Alte Geographic Arabiens (1875), and Babylonien (1886); besides editions of Arabic and Persian works, as Sadi's Gulistun, &c.