While working for the East India Company in Bengal, Charles Wilkins (1749 1836) became one of first Europeans to master the Sanskrit language. He proceeded to set up a printing press in Calcutta to publish works in Sanskrit and other Indian languages. Wilkins also undertook further related projects, including this work, published in London in 1808, which was part of his larger scheme to write a dictionary of the language and to translate a great epic poem, the Mahabharata. The grammar was the only part of the project that was completed. He never finished the dictionary, and only translated...

Wilhelm von Humboldt (1767 1835) was a German philologist, diplomat and philosopher. While Minister of Education he was responsible for reforming the Prussian education system. His pioneering achievements in linguistics influenced many later scholars including Chomsky. This monumental three-volume study of Kawi, a traditional formal and literary language of Java belonging to the Austronesian language family, was posthumously published in 1836 9. The manuscript was prepared for the press by J. K. E. Buschmann, a protege of Humboldt's friend and colleague Bopp (also reissued in this series)....

Wilhelm von Humboldt (1767 1835) was a German philologist, diplomat and philosopher. While Minister of Education he was responsible for reforming the Prussian education system. His pioneering achievements in linguistics influenced many later scholars including Chomsky. Written in 1830 3, this monumental three-volume study of Kawi, a traditional formal and literary language of Java belonging to the Austronesian language family, was published posthumously in 1836 9. The manuscript was prepared for the press by J. K. E. Buschmann, a protege of Humboldt's friend and colleague Bopp, whose work is...

Wilhelm von Humboldt (1767 1835) was a German philologist, diplomat and philosopher. While Minister of Education he was responsible for reforming the Prussian education system. His pioneering achievements in linguistics influenced many later scholars including Chomsky. This monumental three-volume study of Kawi, a traditional formal and literary language of Java belonging to the Austronesian language family, was published posthumously in 1836 9. The manuscript was prepared for the press by J. K. E. Buschmann, a protege of Humboldt's friend and colleague Bopp, whose work is also reissued in...

Charles Henry Robinson (1861 1925) was a Cambridge scholar who, during the 1890s, published several books on the language, literature and culture of the Hausa people. Hausa is an African language originating in Niger and northern Nigeria and spoken widely in West and Central Africa as a lingua franca. Published in 1897, Robinson's Grammar was written to serve the needs of missionaries, colonial staff and army officers who wished to communicate with the local people, but made no claim to be definitive or comprehensive. Until the twentieth century Hausa was written in an Arabic script, examples...

John William Colenso (1814 83) was appointed the first Bishop of Natal in 1853 and settled there in 1855. He devoted great energy to developing the diocese, overseeing the completion of the cathedral in Pietermaritzburg, the building of churches in Durban and Richmond and the establishment of mission stations. He also learned Zulu and set up a printing press. He published a Zulu grammar in 1855, within months of his arrival, and translated the New Testament into Zulu. This substantial Zulu English dictionary appeared in 1861, with financial support from the colonial legislature. It contains...

Born in Ireland, William Marsden (1754 1836) was a pioneer in the study of oriental languages, in particular those of modern-day Malaysia and Indonesia. At the age of seventeen he joined his elder brother to work for the East India Company in Sumatra, and began researching the languages of the East Indies. He moved to London in 1779 and became associated with its scientific and academic circles, attending meetings of the Royal Society and becoming a friend of Sir Joseph Banks. This gave him access to vocabularies compiled by naval officers, and these, combined with his own observations,...

An 1874 survey of the diverse languages of India, presenting vocabulary in a tabular system which reveals similarities and differences.

Johan Ludwig Krapf (1810 81), a German-born member of the Church Missionary Society in East Africa, is regarded as the founder of Swahili studies in Europe. Having pursued an interest in Oriental culture from an early age, he first went to Abyssinia (Ethiopia) as a missionary. During his travels in Africa, he became the first European to see Mount Kenya; but he also considered the potential of Swahili as a lingua franca. Krapf published the first printed text in Swahili, and the first systematic Swahili grammar, as well as being the first to bring Swahili manuscripts to Europe. Another in a...

The German linguist and mythologist Heymann Steinthal (1823 99) taught at the University of Berlin (today Humboldt-University Berlin) and was especially engaged with Wilhelm von Humboldt and his linguistic works. He was a co-founder of the Berliner Gesellschaft fur Anthropologie, Ethnologie und Urgeschichte (Berlin Society for Anthropology, Ethnology and Prehistory). This innovatory volume, published in 1855, draws a connection between the disciplines of linguistics and psychology, and further relates them to the issue of logic. The three parts of the book deal with the nature of grammar, its...