Étienne Fourmont

Étienne Fourmont (23 June 1683 – 8 December 1745) was a French scholar and Orientalist who served as professor of Arabic at the Collège de France and published grammars on the Arabic, Hebrew, and Chinese languages.

[4][5] He completed Huang's catalogue and published it in Paris in 1737 as Catalogus Codicum Manuscriptorum Bibliothecae Regiae (Royal Library Catalog of Manuscripts).

[4] He also wrote Réflexions critiques sur les histoires des anciens peuples (1735), and several dissertations printed in the Memoires of the Academy of Inscriptions.

[6] Fourmont's most notable work was his 1737 grammar of Chinese: Linguae Sinarum mandarinicae hieroglyphicae grammatical duplex patine et cum characteribus Sinensium.

His brother, Michel Fourmont (1690–1746), was also a member of the Academy of Inscriptions, and professor of the Syriac language in the Royal College.