Christian Friedrich Seybold was born on January 6, 1859, in Waiblingen in the Remstal valley of Württemberg, the son of master cooper Daniel Seybold and his wife Katharina, née Böhringer. After successfully passing the state examination, he attended the Protestant seminaries in Maulbronn and Blaubeuren and entered the Protestant seminary in Tübingen in 1878. There he studied theology and Oriental languages. His was primarily interested in Oriental studies from an early age, and he was particularly influenced by Professors Albert Socin, Rudolf von Roth, and Alfred von Gutschmid. In 1883, he received his doctorate and passed his first theological examination. He then spent several months in Spain studying Arabic manuscripts and subsequently worked as a tutor in Heilbronn and Maulbronn until 1886. In 1886, he became private secretary and language tutor to the Brazilian Emperor Pedro II (1825–1891), who, alongside his government duties, devoted himself to diverse private scholarly studies. Seybold taught him Hebrew, Greek, Arabic, and Sanskrit and accompanied the emperor on his extensive travels abroad. After the emperor's death, Seybold accepted a lectureship in Oriental Studies at the Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen in 1892. He received his habilitation in 1893, became an associate professor of Oriental Studies in Tübingen in 1897, and a full professor in 1901.
In his linguistic work Seybold focused primarily on the editing and translation of Arabic manuscripts. He also published a catalog of the Arabic manuscripts in the University of Tübingen library. He is also noted for having studied the Guarani language, which he undertook during his time in Brazil.
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