BARTHÉLEMY, Adrien Léon Nicolas. Paris 24.8.1859 — Emancé (Rambouillet) 18.12.1949. French Iranian and Arabic Scholar. Son of a confectioner, lost early his father. Studied at É.L.O.V. Arabic, Turkish, and Persian, at É.P.H.É. Sanskrit and Avestan (under Darmesteter), graduated 1884 with a thesis on the Pehlevi Gujastak Abalish. From 1884 served in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Tripoli, Beirut, Zanzibar, 1891-96 Aleppo, 1896-99 Marash, 1899-1903 Aleppo again, and 1903-05 Rasht (studied local dialects). From 1905 again in Paris, from 1909 teaching at the É.L.O.V. and É.P.H.É. Retired 1929. Mostly interested in modern Arabic and comparative Semitic. A manuscript of more than 3000 pages, a dictionary of Eastern Arabic, was left unpublished. Married 1906, children.

Publications: Several articles on modern Arabic, on Semitics and on Iranistics.

– French transl. Artâ Vîrâf Nâmak. 54+192 p. P. 1887; ed. & tr. Gujastak Abolish: relation d’une conférence théologique présidée par le calife Mâmoun. Texte pehlvi, trad. & comm. 80 p. P. 1887; “Une légende iranienne trad. du pehlevi”, RL 21, 1888, 314-339 (Yôcht-i-Friyân).

Sources: A. Basset, JA 239, 1951, 239–241; A. Messaoudi, D.O.L.F. 55; F. Richard, Encyclop. Iranica 3:8, 1988.