SYKES, Percy Molesworth. Brompton, Kent 28.2.1867 — London 11.6.1945. Sir. British Colonial Officer and Diplomat. Brigadier-General. Son of army chaplain Rev. William Sykes (1829–1900) and Mary Molesworth, educated at Rugby, military education at Sandhurst. From 1888 served in 2nd Dragoon Guards in India, 1895 Lieutenant, 1897 Captain. In 1892 secret…
THESLEFF, Arthur. Viipuri (now Vyborg in Russia) 5.3.1871 — Stockholm 17.12.1920. Finnish Botanist (Mycologist) and Gipsy Scholar. Son of Colonel Fredrik Vilhelm Thesleff (1824–1893) and Olga Maria Thesleff (1830–1893). From 1890 studied botany at Helsinki. In the late 1890s fieldwork among gipsies in Finland, Sweden, Russia, Hungary and Poland. In 1906…
SMART, Bath Charles. 1838 — 1887. British Physician interested in Gipsy Language. M.D. Worked in Manchester. Married Elizabeth Gurteen, widower 1867. Publications: The Dialect of the English Gypsies. 1863, 2nd rev. & enl. ed. with Henry Thomas Crofton. 23+302 p. L. 1875. Sources: Wikisource, wife’s name and death in Medical Journal, no…
ROTHKIRCH-PANTHEN, Hugo Bernhard Sigismund, Freiherr von. Breslau 22.4.1812 — Breslau 16.3.1868. German Astronomer, also interested in Linguistics. Of Silesian nobility. After Ritterakademie Liegnitz and Elisabet-Gymnasium in Breslau studies at Breslau. Began with law, but also took European and classical languages and mathematics and eventually astronomy. Worked as calculator in Breslau observatory.…
PALMER, Edward Henry. Cambridge 7.8.1840 — Sinai Peninsula 11.8.1882. British Oriental Scholar and Asian traveller. Son of William Henry P., a private schoolmaster, and his wife Mary, lost early his father and soon also his mother, grew up with an aunt. After school in Cambridge he was sent to London…
MACALISTER, Robert Alexander Stewart. Rathmines, Dublin 8.7.1870 — Cambridge 26.4.1950. Irish Archeologist. Professor in Dublin. Son of Alexander M. (1844–1919), anatomist and Egyptologist, and Elizabeth Stewart. His mother and paternal grandfather came from Scotland. Father was Professor at Trinity College and from 1883 at Cambridge, thus he grew up in Cambridge, educated…
LITTMANN, Ludwig Richard Enno. Oldenburg 16.9.1875 — Tübingen 4.5.1958. German Semitic and Ethiopian scholar. Professor in Tübingen. Son of Gustav Adolph L. (1829–1893), owner of a printing house, and Sophie Jacoby. After gymnasium in Oldenburg from 1894 studies of theology and languages at Berlin, Greifswald and Halle. Ph.D. 1898 Halle. In…
LELAND, Charles Godfrey. Philadelphia, PA 15.8.1824 — Florence 20.3.1903. U.S. Journalist and Amateur Folklorist. Son of merchant Charles L. and Charlotte Godfrey. Studies at Princeton, then at Heidelberg, Munich and Paris (he was there during the 1848 revolution). Back home passed in the bar, but never practised as lawyer. Instead…
KOHOUT, Václav. Kolín 1802? — Jasov 6.11.1867. Czech Catholic Theologian. Premonstratensian Vicar in Poprad (Slovakia) in 1849-65. Publications: Manuscript works Tentamen condiscendae lingue zingaricae and Exercitatio lingo zingaricae (1821) kept in Premonstratensian library in Jasov. Sources: Kdo Byl Kdo: Čeští a slovenští orientalisté, afrikanisté a iberoamerikanisté, referring to *Slovenský biografický slovník 3, 1989, 133; Studia Bibliographica Posoniensia 1/2009, 182 (English…
KLEMM, Erika. 1936 — 1993. German (East) Indologist (Hindi Scholar). Studies at Leipzig. Worked in VEB Verlag in Leipzig and in the 1960s collaborated with Nespital. Possibly she is the same E.K. who knew Uwe Johnson and was apparently married with the musicologist Eberhard Klemm (1929–1991), of Leipzig. Publications: Wörterbuch Hindi-Deutsch. Lp.…