A Life Devoted to Language, Philosophy,
and the Human Search for Meaning
Dr. Estiphan Panoussi was born on September 11, 1935, in Sanandaj, Iran, the third of six children in a multilingual and culturally rich environment. From his earliest years, language shaped his world. At home and within his local community, he spoke Senaya, a Christian Neo-Aramaic dialect. In the streets and public life of Sanandaj, Kurdish was the language of daily interaction, while formal schooling introduced him to Modern Persian (Farsi). This early immersion in multiple linguistic systems would quietly set the trajectory for a life devoted to languages, philosophy, and the intellectual traditions of East and West.
After completing elementary school in Sanandaj, he was sent to Tehran to attend St. John Bosco Boarding School, operated by the Salesian Fathers. His academic promise soon became evident. At the age of fifteen, he was selected to continue his education in Mosul, Iraq, at the Chaldean Patriarchate School, an institution dedicated to preparing candidates for the priesthood. Although Arabic and Syriac—the latter being the liturgical language—were entirely new to him, he quickly distinguished himself, rising from third place in his first year to first place by his third year, outperforming native Iraqi students.
This excellence earned him admission to Rome, where, at nineteen, he entered a preparatory program at the Collegio Romano before enrolling at the Pontifical Urban University (Urbaniana). There, instruction was conducted largely in Latin, with supplementary courses in Italian. Between 1955 and 1958, Dr. Panoussi pursued an intensive course of philosophical studies, engaging deeply with logic, metaphysics, ethics, psychology, cosmology, pedagogy, and the interpretation of classical philosophical texts—particularly those of St. Thomas Aquinas. He completed his Bachelor’s degree in Philosophy in 1957 and his Master’s degree in 1958, both with Summa Cum Laude honors.
At twenty-three, he began formal theological studies. Yet this period marked a turning point. While theology demanded submission to established doctrine, his philosophical training encouraged critical inquiry. Concurrently, his reading in psychoanalysis prompted a profound personal reckoning. He became increasingly aware that his path toward the priesthood had been shaped as much by parental and cultural expectation as by personal calling. In 1959, after serious reflection, he made the difficult decision to step away from the priesthood altogether.
This decision opened a new chapter. Unsure whether to pursue Oriental languages, philosophy, or medicine—with a possible specialization in psychiatry—he chose first to study medicine and relocated to Louvain, Belgium, adding French to his growing linguistic repertoire. During this time, his intellectual reputation followed him. In the summer of 1960, he was selected by the Iranian Embassy in Paris to deliver a speech welcoming Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi during a European visit. Shortly thereafter, embassy officials encouraged him to return to the humanities, offering financial support previously denied to students outside the natural sciences.
He accepted, enrolling simultaneously in a doctoral program in philosophy and a master’s program in Oriental languages at the Université Catholique de Louvain. In October 1961, he earned his first Ph.D. degree. Recognizing the importance of German scholarship for advanced philosophical research—particularly in Islamic and medieval philosophy—he moved to Germany later that year to continue his studies at the University of Tübingen.
From 1961 to 1964, Dr. Panoussi undertook one of the most rigorous interdisciplinary programs imaginable, studying philosophy, Semitic languages, Persian, Syriac, Arabic, Avestan, and Middle Persian, alongside sociology, literature, and the history of ideas. His academic range spanned Zoroastrian texts, Islamic philosophy, medieval scholasticism, and Indo-European linguistics. During this period, his expertise became so advanced that senior scholars invited him to begin teaching while still completing his own studies.
Following the encouragement of Professor Otto Rössler, he joined the universities of Giessen and Marburg, where he lectured on Syriac, Arabic, Persian, Islamic philosophy, and comparative metaphysics. His teaching combined linguistic precision with philosophical depth, often examining classical Islamic thinkers such as Avicenna in dialogue with Greek and medieval European philosophy.
By 1967, Dr. Panoussi returned to Louvain to complete and defend his second doctoral dissertation, La Notion de Participation dans la Philosophie d’Avicenne, a comprehensive 327-page study examining the concept of participation in Avicenna’s metaphysics. With its successful public defense, he was awarded the title Docteur en Philosophie.
That same year, he was invited to join the Free University of Berlin as a Wissenschaftlicher Assistent under Professor Rudolf Macuch, one of the world’s leading Semitic scholars. In Berlin, Dr. Panoussi taught extensively in Old Syriac, Neo-Aramaic, Arabic philosophy, and medieval logic, while publishing scholarly articles and contributing significantly to critical editions of Aristotelian texts—particularly the Arabic transmission of Aristotle’s Rhetoric.
In the early 1970s, he returned to Iran at the invitation of the government and accepted a faculty position at the University of Tehran. There, he taught Ancient Syriac, Aramaic, Biblical Aramaic, and Latin, while later expanding into Italian language instruction. His work during this period also included the early stages of a monumental Latin-Persian lexicographical project.
In 1978, just prior to the Iranian Revolution, Dr. Panoussi accepted a visiting scholar position at the University of Utah. After intensive English training, he taught Syriac and Persian linguistics and literature, while also collaborating on the Persian translation of the Book of Mormon and contributing to international Aristotelian scholarship.
After returning briefly to Tehran, he resumed teaching and research until political circumstances again shifted his trajectory. In 1988, he accepted a scholarship to the Catholic University of Eichstätt in Germany, where he taught, published on Neo-Aramaic dialects, and digitized his Latin-Persian lexicon—now comprising approximately 900 pages.
In 1992, Dr. Panoussi was appointed Senior Lecturer in Arabic at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden. Teaching in English while learning Swedish, he spent nearly a decade instructing students from undergraduate to doctoral levels in Arabic grammar, classical prose and poetry, Qur’anic texts, and Neo-Aramaic studies. A major research grant supported his definitive three-volume work on the Senaya dialect, encompassing texts, grammar, and an extensive dictionary.
After retiring in 2000, he continued his research as a Visiting Scholar at Harvard University. In 2002, he relocated to California, where he began teaching philosophy at Antelope Valley College. Since then, he has instructed courses in ethics, logic, world religions, and introductory philosophy—bringing decades of linguistic mastery, philosophical rigor, and cross-cultural insight into the classroom.