EASTON, Morton William. Hartford, Conn. 18.8.1841 — Mount Gretna, Pa. 21.8.1917. U.S. Linguist. Professor in Philadelphia. Son of Oliver Hastings E. and Emeline Maria Brace, a Puritan family. Educated at Hartford High School, studies at Yale (A.B. 1863). From 1867 studied medicine at Columbia University (Med.dr. 1866), then further studies in Vienna, but returned to philology and took his Ph.D. degree in Sanskrit in 1872 under Whitney at Yale. From 1871 Professor of ancient Languages at Tennessee University, then Professor of comparative philology and modern languages until 1881. From 1882 Professor of English and Comparative Philology at University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, 1912 emeritus. At least in the 1880s taught there Sanskrit, too. Married 1875 Maria Stillé Burton, two sons and two daughters.
Publications: “On the Vedic Style”, PAOS 1873, lxix; “Assimilation in substitution and rotation”, AJPh 10, 1889, 198-207; other works on linguistics.
– Observations on the Platform at Persepolis. 18 p. Public. of the Univ. of Pa. Ser. in Philol. 2:2. 1892.
– “The Divinities of the Gāthās”, JAOS 15, 1893, 189-206.
Sources: Who Was Who in Am. 1; briefly in JAOS 37, 1918, 168; Obituary Record of Yale Graduates 1917-1918. New Haven 1919, 588f.; short life sketch with photo in UPenn English Dept. homepage; photo in A. Addison, Portraits in the University of Pennsylvania. Philadelphia 1940, no. 72 (https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/76363615.pdf).
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