Jean-Philippe Baratier (also ''Johann Philipp Baratier''; 19 January 1721 – 5 October 1740) was a German
scholar
A scholar is a person who is a researcher or has expertise in an academic discipline. A scholar can also be an academic, who works as a professor, teacher, or researcher at a university. An academic usually holds an advanced degree or a termina ...
. A noted
child prodigy
A child prodigy is, technically, a child under the age of 10 who produces meaningful work in some domain at the level of an adult expert. The term is also applied more broadly to describe young people who are extraordinarily talented in some f ...
of the 18th century, he published eleven works and authored a great quantity of unpublished manuscripts.
Life
Jean-Philippe Baratier was born on 19 January 1721 in the town of
Schwabach
Schwabach () is a German city of about 40,000 inhabitants near Nuremberg in the centre of the region of Franconia in the north of Bavaria. Together with the neighboring cities of Nuremberg, Fürth and Erlangen, Schwabach forms one of the three me ...
, near
Nuremberg
Nuremberg (, ; ; in the local East Franconian dialect: ''Nämberch'' ) is the Franconia#Towns and cities, largest city in Franconia, the List of cities in Bavaria by population, second-largest city in the States of Germany, German state of Bav ...
to Francois Baratier (1682–1751), a
Huguenot
The Huguenots ( , ; ) are a Religious denomination, religious group of French people, French Protestants who held to the Reformed (Calvinist) tradition of Protestantism. The term, which may be derived from the name of a Swiss political leader, ...
minister at the local French church, and Anne Charles.
Under his father's careful conducting of his education, Baratier made progress in his early years. At the age of three, his father taught him, without the use of books or paper, the ability to read and write. His father then taught him Latin by gradually incorporating more Latin in his conversations with him, so that he was as familiar with Latin as he was with his native French and German by his fourth birthday. At the age of 4, his father began to teach him Greek, and by the end of 15 months (aged 5) he was reportedly able to translate the historical books of the Bible from Greek to Latin. He was at the age of 5 years and 8 months introduced to Hebrew, and by a year later he knew perfectly well entire parts of the Hebrew Bible. At the end of three years, he was said to be so well-versed in Hebrew that he was able to translate with ease even the difficult books of the Hebrew Bible (Job, Proverbs, Psalms, Isaiah), and knew all the Psalms by heart at the age of 7.
His progress was so rapid that by the time he was five years of age he could speak
French
French may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to France
** French language, which originated in France
** French people, a nation and ethnic group
** French cuisine, cooking traditions and practices
Arts and media
* The French (band), ...
,
Latin
Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...
and
Dutch
Dutch or Nederlands commonly refers to:
* Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands
** Dutch people as an ethnic group ()
** Dutch nationality law, history and regulations of Dutch citizenship ()
** Dutch language ()
* In specific terms, i ...
with ease, and read
Greek
Greek may refer to:
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...
fluently. He then studied
Hebrew
Hebrew (; ''ʿÎbrit'') is a Northwest Semitic languages, Northwest Semitic language within the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family. A regional dialect of the Canaanite languages, it was natively spoken by the Israelites and ...
, and in three years was able to translate the
Hebrew Bible
The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach" . '' Tudela’s ''Itinerarium''.
At 14, he was admitted Master of Arts at Halle, and received into the
Prussian Academy of Sciences
The Royal Prussian Academy of Sciences () was an academy established in Berlin, Germany on 11 July 1700, four years after the Prussian Academy of Arts, or "Arts Academy," to which "Berlin Academy" may also refer. In the 18th century, when Frenc ...
, while working on a method to calculate
longitude
Longitude (, ) is a geographic coordinate that specifies the east- west position of a point on the surface of the Earth, or another celestial body. It is an angular measurement, usually expressed in degrees and denoted by the Greek lett ...
at sea. The last years of his short life he devoted to the study of history of the Jewish people and antiquities, did translations, and had collected materials for histories of the
Thirty Years' War
The Thirty Years' War, fought primarily in Central Europe between 1618 and 1648, was one of the most destructive conflicts in History of Europe, European history. An estimated 4.5 to 8 million soldiers and civilians died from battle, famine ...
and of
Antitrinitarianism
Nontrinitarianism is a form of Christianity that rejects the orthodox Christian theology
Christian theology is the theology – the systematic study of the divine and religion – of Christianity, Christian belief and practice. It concent ...
, and for an inquiry concerning
Egyptian antiquities
Egyptology (from ''Egypt'' and Greek , ''-logia''; ) is the scientific study of ancient Egypt. The topics studied include ancient Egyptian history, language, literature, religion, architecture and art from the 5th millennium BC until the end ...
. His health, which had always been weak, gave way completely under these labours, and he died at the age of nineteen.
In 1741,
Johann Heinrich Samuel Formey
Johann Heinrich Samuel Formey (; 31 May 1711– 7 March 1797) was a German people, German churchman, educator, author, and journalist. The son of an immigrant French people, French family, he preached, taught, and wrote in French language, French ...
wrote a biography of him, published at
Utrecht
Utrecht ( ; ; ) is the List of cities in the Netherlands by province, fourth-largest city of the Netherlands, as well as the capital and the most populous city of the Provinces of the Netherlands, province of Utrecht (province), Utrecht. The ...
.
Samuel Johnson
Samuel Johnson ( – 13 December 1784), often called Dr Johnson, was an English writer who made lasting contributions as a poet, playwright, essayist, moralist, literary critic, sermonist, biographer, editor, and lexicographer. The ''Oxford ...
also wrote a biography of him, first published in 1740 in ''
The Gentleman's Magazine
''The Gentleman's Magazine'' was a monthly magazine founded in London, England, by Edward Cave in January 1731. It ran uninterrupted for almost 200 years, until 1907, ceasing publication altogether in 1922. It was the first to use the term ''m ...
''.
References
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Attribution:
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External links
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Dictionnaire Bouillet
''Dictionnaire Bouillet'' () is the informal title of the ''Dictionnaire universel d'histoire et de géographie'' ("Universal Dictionary of History and Geography"), a French reference work in the public domain. The first edition was published i ...