Steinthal, HEYMANN, was born at Gröbzig in Anhalt, 16th May 1823, studied philology and philosophy at Berlin, and from 1850 became a lecturer in the science of Language and Mythology. The years 1852-55 he gave to the study of Chinese at Paris, and in 1863 became an extra-ordinary professor of the science of Language at Berlin, from 1872 also lecturing at the Jewish High School on Old Testament criticism, ethics, and the philosophy and history of religion. His writings bear the stamp of a powerful intellect and of learning remarkable at once for profundity and width of range. His method shows the influence of W. von Humboldt, whose philological works he edited (1884). He died 14th March 1899.
Among his works are Der Ursprung der Sprache (1851); Klassifikation der Sprachen (1850), worked up later into the important book, Charakteristik der hauptsächlichsten Typen des Sprachbaues (1860); Die Entwicklung der Sprache (1852); Grammatik, Logik, Psychologie (1855); Geschichte der sprachwissenschaft bei den Griechen u. Römern (1863); Die Mandevogersprachen (1867); Allgemeine Ethik (1885), &c. With Lazarus he edited from its foundation in 1860 the Zeitschrift für Völkerpsychologie und Sprachwissenschaft.