Albert Étienne Jean-Baptiste Terrien de Lacouperie (23 November 1844 – 11 October 1894) was a French orientalist, specialising in comparative philology. He published a number of books on early Asian and Middle-Eastern languages, initially in French and then in English. Lacouperie is best known for his studies of the Yi Ching and his argument, known as Sino-Babylonianism, that the important elements of ancient civilization in ancient China came from Mesopotamia and that there were resemblances between Chinese characters and Akkadian hieroglyphics. The American sinologist E. Bruce Brooks writes that Lacouperie "gained a sufficiently accurate view of the Spring and Autumn period that he realized, half a century before Chyen Mu and Owen Lattimore, that the 'Chinese' territory of that period was in fact honeycombed with non-Sinitic peoples and even states." Brooks concluded that the "whole trend of Lacouperie's thought still provokes a collective allergic reaction in Sinology and its neighbor sciences; only now are some of the larger questions he raised, and doubtless mishandled, coming to be hesitantly askable." Terrien died in London at his residence, 136 Bishop's Road, Fulham, leaving a widow. Early life and name Biographical detail on Terrien is scant, some notices drawing on Royal Asiatic Society records and prefaces. He was born in November 1844 in Ingouville, Le Havre, Normandy. He was a descendant of the Cornish family of Terrien, which emigrated in the 17th century during the English Civil War, and acquired the property of La Couperie in Normandy. Some bibliographies append "Baron" to his name and it appears he published under the name Albert Étienne Jean-Baptiste Terrien de Lahaymonnais Peixotte de Poncel, Baron de La Couperie, but there is no record of the family being ennobled. His father was a merchant, and Albert received a business education. Career In early life he settled at Hong Kong, where he soon turned his attention from commerce to the study of oriental languages, and he acquired an especially intimate knowledge of the Chinese language. In 1867, he published a philological work, Du Langage, Essai sur la Nature et l'Étude des Mots et des Langues (Paris, 8 volumes), which attracted considerable attention. Soon after, his attention was attracted by the progress made in deciphering Babylonian inscriptions, and by the resemblance between the Chinese characters and the early Akkadian language hieroglyphics. The comparative philology of the two languages occupied most of his later life, and he was able to