BENFEY, ben'fi, Theodor, German Orientalist and comparative philologist: b. of Jewish parents, Norlen, Hanover, 28 Jan. 1809; d. 26 June 1881. He studied in Gottingen, Munich, Frankfort and Heidelberg, devoting himself especially to classical and comparative philology. In 1862 he was appointed to the chair of Sanskrit and comparative philology in the University of Gottingen, which he held till his death. One of his earliest liters efforts was a translation of 'Terence' (Stuttgart tuttgart 1837); after this, however, he turned his at tention almost exclusively to comparative phi lology, Oriental languages, especially Sanskrit, and mythology. In his 50 years devoted, with rare enthusiasm and persistency, to linguistic studies, he did more than any other scholar to enlarge the boundaries of Sanskrit philology. In comparative philology, though an adherent of Bopp, he deviated from his master in deriv ing all Indo-European words from mono syllabic primitive verbs. This conception de pends on his theory of the origin of stem suffixes. These, he holds, are almost all de rived from a fundamental form, ant, which appears in the present participle of verbs. To
support this view he assumes the most violent permutations of sounds, which set all phonetic laws at defiance. For his theory consult his 'Lexicon of Greek Roots' (1839); 'Short San skrit Grammar' (1868), and numerous essays. In Sanskrit he laid a foundation for the true study of the Veda by editing the Veda' (1848) with glossary and translation; and this work he continued by a scholarly translation of the first mandala of the Rig Veda in his magazine, Orient and Occident (1863-64). His Vedic grammar, for which he had been collecting ma terials for many years, was left unfinished. He also published a 'Complete Sanskrit Grammar, Crestomathy and Glossary' (1854), and a 'San skrit-English Dictionary' (1866). In compara tive folk-lore his principal work is a translation of the (Panchatantra) (1859). It is accompa nied with elaborate notes, and the first volume consists entirely of an introduction in which he traces the course of these Indian stories in their wanderings and transformations both in eastern and western literatures.