Abhandlungen über die Geschichte und Alterthümer, die Künste, Wissenschaften und Literatur Asiens von Sir William Jones [...] Erster Band [...] übersetzt von Johann Christian Fitk [...] und mit Anmerungen [...] bereichert von D. Johann Friedrich Kleuker

Abhandlungen über die Geschichte und Alterthümer, die Künste, Wissenschaften und Literatur Asiens... (Riga; 1795) - the first volume of a German-language translation of a collection of treaties on history and antiquity, art, science and literature in Asia by William Jones (1746-1794), a British lawyer, judge, philologist, translator, and linguist. Sir William Jones was also an outstanding language researcher and poet. He was born in London and learned Greek, Latin, Persian, Arabic, Hebrew and partly Chinese at a young age. He was educated at the University of Oxford, where in 1773 he obtained a master’s degree. His first publication was Histoire de Nader Chah (1770), a translation of the Persian text Mirza Mehdi Khan Astarabadi, made at the request of the Danish king Christian VII. In 1771 he published the first English textbook on Persian language Grammar of the Persian Language. After law studies, in 1783 he was appointed a judge in the court in Calcutta. In 1784, he founded the Asian Society of Bengal in Calcutta, continuing to improve and expand his knowledge of oriental languages, including Sanskrit. The founding of this association grew out of Jones' love for India, its inhabitants and culture, as well as its revulsion to oppression, nationalism and imperialism. Its main goal was to develop measures to support the cooperation of international scientific and humanistic projects that would be unlimited by social, ethnic, religious and political barriers. Through the Society, Jones hoped to make oriental studies more attractive to Westerners. The topic of the dissertations involved in this volume is related to history and antiquity, art, culture, science and literature of Hindus, Arabs, Tatars, Persians, Chinese, Afghans, Jews, etc. Jones' activities and publications contributed, among others to increase the interest of Europeans in religion and Indian languages, and contributed to the discussion on the relations between Indian and European languages, within the Indo-European language family. The translation from English was made by a German historian, geographer, anglist, university professor Johann Christian Fick (1763-1821), while the author of comments, explanations and supplements is the German theologian and academic lecturer Johann Friedrich Kleuker (1749-1827). By making William Jones' treaties available, Fick and Kleuker laid the foundation for the nineteenth-century interest in India and Asia.