Concept
George Abraham Grierson
Overview
Sir George Abraham Grierson (7 January 1851 – 9 March 1941) was an Irish administrator and linguist in British India. He worked in the Indian Civil Service but an interest in philology and linguistics led him to pursue studies in the languages and folklore of India during his postings in Bengal and Bihar. He published numerous studies in the journals of learned societies and wrote several books during his administrative career but proposed a formal linguistic survey at the Oriental Congress in 1886 at Vienna. The Congress recommended the idea to the British Government and he was appointed superintendent of the newly created Linguistic Survey of India in 1898.
Grierson continued the work until 1928, surveying people across the British Indian territory, documenting spoken languages by recording voices and written forms. He was responsible for documenting information on 179 languages, defined by him through a test of mutual unintelligibility, and 544 dialects which he placed in five language families. He published the findings of the Linguistic Survey in a series that consisted of 19 volumes.
Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).
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The responsibility of the British rulers of India to the British nation is chiefly useful because, when any acts of the government are called in question, it insures publicity and discussion; the utility of which does not require that the public at large should comprehend the point at issue, provided there are any individuals among them who do; for a merely moral responsibility not being responsibility to the…
John Stuart Mill, Considerations on Representative Government
States what George Abraham Grierson is.
Before this state of affairs arose, barter also could scarcely have possessed that character of secrecy which only fear and hatred could give it. In all probability the intercourse which necessarily took place in early times between the older inhabitants and the newer peoples, led to a competition of languages in which the poorer and less developed language of primitive man inevitably succumbed. Nevertheless, the…
Wilhelm Max Wundt, Elements of Folk Psychology Outline of a Psychological History of the Development of Mankind
Close in meaning to George Abraham Grierson; the term itself is not named.
Mr. C. T. Onions, appointed an editor in 1913, has been on the staff since 1895. He is also known to scholars as the author of the _Oxford Shakespeare Glossary_ and for his editorial part in _Shakespeare’s England_. The London Goldsmiths’ Company contributed £5,000 towards the cost of the sixth volume of the Dictionary, the title-page of which records their generous support. Apart from this the whole of the…
Oxford University Press, Some Account of the Oxford University Press, 1468-1921
Close in meaning to George Abraham Grierson; the term itself is not named.
Philosophers who discussed George Abraham Grierson
Related ideas
- Hindi
- Bengal Presidency
- Bhakti
- Linguistics
- Philology
- British Academy
- Sanskrit
- Advaita Vedanta
- Max Müller
- British Raj
- Hindustani language
- William Jones (philologist)
Place in the tradition
Part of Vedanta.