[B-Greek] <Re: B-Greek> Self-taught in Greek
andrew.mcconnel at lineone.net
andrew.mcconnel at lineone.net
Thu Nov 18 05:22:58 EST 2010
After John Brown of Haddington another
self-taught Greek scholar, and a Scottish shepherd`s son, was
Alexander Murray (1775 – 1813). Murray was a minister at a parish
for a while, and could preach effectively, but was not a theologian
as such; he was, though, a pioneering linguist, so of some interest
here.
My source is the one page I still have
from a feature on him in the paper local to Murray`s home,
the Galloway News 19thDecember, 1996.A geography book with the Lord`s Prayer
translated into many languages instilled in Murray a love of
languages; he was reading Homer and the GNT by the age of ten, and he
continued to amaze people by the way he was able to learn languages
from very little. Near his home were no roads, only part of a
smuggler`s trail up to Edinburgh, and this link was in part
responsible for Murray gaining a bursary at the university there. He
became professor of Oriental languages in 1812.
Murray is credited with resolving a
conflict in Ethiopia: a letter for King George III arrived in London,
but nobody could translate it. Murray`s renown had spread to London
and the letter (apparently written in ordinary Abyssinian) was sent
to him; as a result the dispute was prevented from escalating.Murray wrote a History
of the European Languages published
post-humously. The Victorians thought enough of him to have erected a
memorial, Murray`s Monument http://www.panoramio.com/photo/1064973and
he has been called the “father of philology”, but (and I am no
linguistics specialist) he does not get mentioned in the same sentence as Bopp,
Grimm et al. – a stub in Wikipedia is about it. Does anybody know
how significant his contribution to early 18th
century linguistic debelopments really was?
Thanks for the prod, Mike.
Andrew McConnel.
----Original Message----
From: b-greek-request at lists.ibiblio.org
Date: 16/11/2010 18:20
To: <b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org>
Subj: B-Greek Digest, Vol 95, Issue 16
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