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Sir William Jones ( September 28, 1746 - April 27, 1794) was a British philologist and student of ancient India, particularly known for his discovery of the Indo-European languages family.Jones was born in London, his father (also named Sir William Jones) was a mathematician. The young William Jones was a linguistic prodigy, learning Greek, Latin, Persian, and Arabic at an early age. By the end of his life he was reported to be able to speak twenty-eight languages.
Though his father died when he was only three, Jones was still able to go to university. Graduating from University College, OxfordUniversity College (corporate name, "The Master and Fellows of the College of the Great Hall of the University, commonly known as University College in the University of Oxford", usually known by its derivative, "Univ"), is the oldest of the constituent c in 1764Events January 19 John Wilkes is expelled from the House of Commons for seditious libel February 15 The American city of St. Louis is established. Births February 11 Joseph Chenier, French poet (+ 1811) March 13 Charles Grey, 2nd Earl Grey, Prime Minister, he embarked on a career as a tutor and translator for the next six years. During this time he published Histoire de Nader Chah, a translation of a work originally written in Farsi. This would be the first of numerous works on PersiaPersia is the historical name for the state of Iran. The name was used in the West due to the ancient Greek name for Iran, Persis''. Persia is used to describe the nation of Iran, its people, or its ancient empire. The name Persia comes from a province in, TurkeyTurkey (officially the Republic of Turkey Turkish Turkiye is a country located in Southwest Asia with a small part in southeastern Europe. Until 1922 the country was the center of the Ottoman Empire. The Anatolian peninsula, between the Black Sea and the, and the Middle EastThe Middle East is a geographical and cultural area comprising the lands around the southern and eastern parts of the Mediterranean Sea, a territory that extends from the eastern Mediterranean Sea to the Persian Gulf. The Middle East is a subregion of Afr in general.
For three years starting in 1770Events March 5 Boston Massacre: 5 Americans killed by British troops in an event that would help start the American Revolutionary War 5 years later. May 14 Marie Antoinette arrives to French Court. May 16 14-year old Marie Antoinette marries 15-year old L he studied law, which would eventually lead him to his life work in India; after a spell as a circuit judge in WalesFor alternate meanings, see Wales (disambiguation Wales ( Welsh: Cymru pronounced /"k@mrI/ SAMPA, km IPA, 'Kumree' approximate pronunciation) is one of the four nations comprising the United Kingdom (the other three being England, Scotland and Northern Ir (and a fruitless attempt to resolve the issues of the American RevolutionThe American Revolution refers to the series of events, ideas, and changes that resulted in the political separation of thirteen colonies in North America from the British Empire and the creation of the United States of America. The American Revolutionary in concert with Benjamin Franklin in Paris), he was appointed to the Supreme Court of Bengal in 1783.
There he was entranced by Indian culture, a then-untouched field of European scholarship, and he founded the Asiatick Society of Bengal . Over the next ten years he would produce a flood of works on India, launching the modern study of the subcontinent in virtually every social science. He also wrote on the local laws, music, literature, botany, and geography, and made the first English translations of several important works of Indian literature.
Of all his discoveries, Jones is best known today for being the first to notice that Sanskrit bore a certain resemblance to Greek and Latin. In The Sanscrit Language ( 1786) he suggested that all three languages had a common root, and that further they might all be related in turn to Gothic and Celtic languages, and to Persian. This was the first evidence of the Indo-European language family, and was also the first important use of the technique of comparative philology.
Jones is also indirectly responsible for some of the feel of the English Romantic movement's poetry (including the likes of Lord Byron and Samuel Taylor Coleridge), as his translations of "eastern" poetical works were a source for that style.
