Background
He was born in Paris on 13 January 1795. His father, Jean Jacques Antoine Caussin de Perceval (1759–1835), was professor of Arabic in the Collège de France.
Diplomat lexicographer professor
He was born in Paris on 13 January 1795. His father, Jean Jacques Antoine Caussin de Perceval (1759–1835), was professor of Arabic in the Collège de France.
In 1814 he went to Constantinople as a student interpreter, and afterwards travelled in Asiatic Turkey, spending a year with the Maronites in the Lebanon, and finally becoming dragoman at Aleppo. Returning to Paris, he became professor of modern Arabic in the School of Living Oriental Languages in 1821, and also professor of Arabic in the Collège de France in 1833. In 1849 he was elected to the Academy of Inscriptions.
He died on 15 January 1871 at the Siege of Paris.
One of the principal manuscript sources used is the great Kitab al-Aghani of Abu al-Faraj, which has since been published (20 vols, Boulak, 1868) in Egypt. But no publication of texts can deprive the Essai, which is now very rare, of its value as a trustworthy guide through a tangled mass of tradition.