X-Nico

4 unusual facts about William Dwight Whitney


Benjamin Eli Smith

He was managing editor of the first edition of the Century Dictionary, and editor-in-chief of the revised edition after the death of editor William Dwight Whitney in 1894.

Indo-Semitic languages

The arguments presented for a relationship between Indo-European and Semitic in the 19th century were commonly rejected by Indo-Europeanists, including W.D. Whitney (1875) and August Schleicher.

Sanskrit grammar

European grammatical scholarship began in the 18th century with Jean François Pons and others, and culminated in the exhaustive expositions by 19th century scholars such as Otto Boehtlingk, William Dwight Whitney, Jacob Wackernagel and others.

Sanskrit studies

The nineteenth century was a golden age of Western Sanskrit scholarship, and many of the giants of the field (Whitney, Macdonnell, Monier-Williams, Grassmann) knew each other personally.



see also