Isaac Jacob Schmidt (Russian: Яков Иванович (Исаак Якоб) Шмидт; 25 October [O.S. 14 October] 1779 — 20 September [O.S. 8 September] 1847 [1]) was an Orientalist specializing in Mongolian and Tibetan. Schmidt was a Moravian missionary to the Kalmyks and devoted much of his labours to Bible translation.
Born in Amsterdam, he spent much of his career in St. Petersburg as a member of the Russian Academy of Sciences. He published the first grammar and dictionary of Mongolian, as well as a grammar and dictionary of Tibetan. He also translated Saghang Sechen's Erdeni-yin tobči into German, and several Geser Khan epics into Russian and German. His works are regarded as ground-breaking for the establishment of Mongolian and Tibetan studies.
Early life
Schmidt was born into an Amsterdam Moravian family. At the age of six, he was sent to school of the Moravian community in Neuwied. Due to the advance of Napoleon's troops, he returned home in 1791. His family lost all their wealth in an economic crisis following Napoleon's occupation of the Netherlands, but this gave Isaak Jakob Schmidt the impetus to begin a trading apprenticeship and learn several languages. In 1798 he accepted an offer by his church to work at their Sarepta post on the Volga River, emigrated to Russia and adopted Russian citizenship.
Research work
His work gave Schmidt an opportunity for frequent business contacts with the local Kalmyks, and he eventually learnt both the Kalmyk and the classical Mongolian script. At the same time, he began collecting Kalmyk and Mongolian manuscripts and keeping records on Kalmyk language, religion and history. From 1807 to 1812 Schmidt worked for his church in Saratov. In 1812, he married his wife Helena Wigand. In the same year, his church sent him to Moscow and then to St. Petersburg. Unfortunately, many of his records and collected manuscripts were destroyed in the fire of Moscow of that year.
In 1812, Julius Klaproth's Dissertation on language and script of the Uighurs (Abhandlung über die Sprache und Schrift der Uiguren) became the subject of a long-standing dispute. Klaproth asserted that Uighur was a Turkic language, while Schmidt was persuaded that Uighur should be classified as a "Tangut" language.[2]
In the following years, Schmidt concentrated on translations of the Bible into Kalmyk and Mongolian. His scientific work became noted after the publication of a work on the history of Mongols and Tibetans in 1824. His daughter Emilie was born in 1828. Until his death in 1847, Schmidt published a multitude of works on Mongolian and Tibetan studies, and became a member of a number of different European academic societies.
