This article examines the intellectual and institutional origins of academic Oriental studies in early modern Europe, addressing a significant gap in critical scholarship that has largely focused on the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Through the translation, analysis, and critical assessment of Daniel Stolzenberg’s argument, the study investigates whether it is possible to speak of “Oriental studies” as a coherent field of knowledge prior to the nineteenth century, and if so, what its internal logic, central focus, and institutional structure were. The article advances the hypothesis that between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries, Oriental studies were constituted primarily not as the study of Eastern civilizations or religions, but rather as a form of “Oriental philology,” centered on the teaching and scholarly mastery of specific languages—most notably Hebrew, Syriac, Chaldean, and Arabic. Methodologically, the research draws on a systematic historical and bibliographical analysis of works employing the concept of “Oriental languages,” based on data extracted from the WorldCat database covering the period 1450–1750. After manual refinement, the dataset comprises 335 book titles attributed to 192 authors. The findings demonstrate that the concept of “Oriental languages,” particularly within Protestant universities in Germany and the Netherlands, contributed to the formation of a distinct disciplinary self-consciousness. This linguistic and philological framework subsequently provided the epistemic foundation for the emergence of modern Orientalism and Islamic studies. The article concludes by emphasizing the importance of reassessing this early phase for a more historically grounded understanding of the relationship between Orientalism, Islamic studies, and the development of modern