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Martin Haug (January 30, 1827 - June 3, 1876), German Orientalist, was born at Ostdorf, today belonging to the Balingen municipality, Württemberg.

He became a pupil in the gymnasium at Stuttgart at a comparatively late age, and in 1848 he entered the university of Tübingen, where he studied Oriental languages, especially Sanskrit. He afterwards attended lectures in Göttingen, and in 1854 settled as Privatdozent at Bonn. In 1856 he removed to Heidelberg, where he assisted Bunsen in his literary undertakings.

In 1859 he accepted an invitation to India, where he became superintendent of Sanskrit studies and professor of Sanskrit in Poona. Here his acquaintance with the Zend language and literature afforded him excellent opportunities for extending his knowledge of this branch of literature. The result of his researches was a volume of Essays on the sacred language, writings and religion of the Parsees (Bombay, 1862). Having returned to Stuttgart in 1866, he was called to Munich as professor of Sanskrit and comparative philology in 1868.

Besides the Essays on the Parsees, of which a new edition, by EW West, greatly enriched from the posthumous papers of the author, appeared in 1878, Haug published a number of works of considerable importance to the student of the literatures of ancient India and Persia. They include:

• Die Pehiewisprache und der Bundehesch (1854)
• Die Schrift und Sprache der zweiten Keilschriftgattung (1855)
• Die fünf Gathas, edited, translated and expounded (1858-1860)
• an edition, with translation and explanation, of the Aitareya Brahnsana of the Rigveda (Bombay, 1863), which is accounted his best work in the province of ancient Indian literature
• A Lecture on an original Speech of Zoroaster (1865)
• An old Zend-Pahiavi Glossery (1867)
• Über den Charakter der Pehlewisprache (1869)
• Das 18. Kapitel des Wendidad (1869)
• Über das Ardai-Vircifnamei (1870)
• An old Pahlavi-Pazand Glossary (1870)
• Vedische Rätselfragen und Rätselspruche (1875)

For particulars of Haug's life and work, see Adalbert Bezzenberger, Beiträge zur Kunde der indogermanischen Sprachen, vol. i. pp. 70 seq.

This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.