The respected phonetician and philologist Henry Sweet (1845 1912) has had a lasting influence on the study and teaching of linguistics, particularly phonetics and Old English. Sweet is also known for being, in part, the inspiration for Henry Higgins in Shaw's Pygmalion. This two-volume work, first published in 1892 8, marks the start of a new tradition in the study of English, although it received little attention in Britain upon its publication. Building on developments in European linguistics, this was the first grammar of English to adopt a scientific approach to the description of...

Archibald Henry Sayce (1845-1933) became interested in Middle Eastern languages and scripts while still a teenager. Old Persian and Akkadian cuneiform had recently been deciphered, and popular enthusiasm for these discoveries was running high when Sayce began his academic career at Oxford in 1869. He had already published two grammars of Assyrian (both reissued in this series) by the time these lively and engaging lectures, given in 1875 and 1876, were published in 1877. The introduction expresses optimism that Assyrian and Egyptian would establish themselves as core components of the...

Archibald Henry Sayce (1845-1933) became interested in Middle Eastern languages and scripts while still a teenager. Old Persian and Akkadian cuneiform had recently been deciphered, and at the same time Indo-European studies had emerged as a lively field, with publications by scholars including Grimm, Bopp and Schleicher. Assyrian offered opportunities to historians of the Semitic languages similar to those provided by Avestan to Indo-Europeanists, and Sayce's grammar, published in 1872, was aimed at such an audience. Only transliteration was used, as cuneiform would be both expensive and...

Archibald Henry Sayce (1845-1933) became interested in Middle Eastern languages and scripts while still a teenager. Old Persian and Akkadian cuneiform had recently been deciphered, and in the early 1870s the translation of part of the epic tale of Gilgamesh attracted considerable publicity. Based at Oxford, the young philologist Sayce published several books on Assyrian in quick succession. In the preface to this 1875 teaching grammar/reader, he notes that in just three years since the publication of his grammar for specialists (also reissued in this series), Assyrian had become a 'popular'...

Cornish had all but died out as a spoken language by the middle of the eighteenth century. However, it experienced a slight resurgence in the nineteenth century, spurred by increased scholarly interest. Published in 1887, this dictionary played a role in preserving Cornwall's linguistic heritage. Compiled by Frederick W. P. Jago (1817-92) and intended as a supplement to existing Cornish word lists and glossaries, it was the first resource to provide Cornish translations for English words and phrases. Jago attempts to provide literary citations for the entries wherever possible, but does not...

The Cornish dialect stemmed from the influence of English on the declining Cornish language, and contained words from both languages. This glossary was published in 1882 by Frederick W. P. Jago (1817-92) in an effort to describe and preserve the dialect as it too declined. Containing around 3,700 dialect words from both Cornish and English, and annotated with examples, etymological information and literary citations, the work is an invaluable record of a disappearing dialect and way of life. The word list is supplemented by a history of Cornish and the Cornish dialect, showing similarities...

'The substance of these lectures', John Rhys states in his preface, 'was delivered at Aberystwyth College in 1874 ... but it is hoped that they will also be found intelligible to other than Welsh readers'. Rhys (originally Rees, 1840-1915) had been a student of Jesus College, Oxford, and his interest in linguistics was fired by attending the lectures of German philologists while studying abroad in summer vacations. This 1877 work established him as a scholar, and led to his election as the first professor of Celtic languages at Oxford, and later as principal of Jesus College. Systematic...

Travelling in order to recover from a nervous breakdown, Basil Hall Chamberlain (1850 1935) arrived in Yokohama, Japan, in May 1873. He was immediately fascinated by traditional Japanese culture. At the same time, the national drive for modernisation in the wake of the Meiji Restoration had created a demand for teachers of English. Chamberlain was taken on as a tutor in the Imperial Japanese Naval Academy, at the same time studying the Japanese language to such good effect that in 1886 he was made professor of Japanese and philology at the Imperial University (later Tokyo University). This...

In this two-volume work of 1880, Sayce attempts to give a systematic account of the science of language.