starting from the 19th century, the term orientalism was used to indicate also a scholarly field specialized in oriental languages and sacred ancient texts. in the late 18th century and early 19th century, studies about sanskrit, persian, and egyptian hieroglyphs started to become very popular. new institutions were established during this period to help developing these studies. in 1795 was established the school of living oriental languages in paris in 1795, in 1821 the societe asiatique, the royal asiatic society in london in 1834, the american oriental society in 1842.