Silvestre de Sacy‹s (1758–1838) work on a universal grammar was intended as an introduction to general linguistics. Today, the additional explanation in the title »mis à la portée des enfants« would have to be »mis à la portée des étudiants« in accordance with the linguistic education provided at our universities. By referring often to phenomena from the Semitic languages and their classification as universal language categories, this work plays an important role in the tradition of the grammatica universalis.