LANGLÈS, Louis-Mathieu. Perenne (Welles-Pérennes) near St.Didier (Montdidier, Oise) 23.8.1763 — Paris 28.5.(28.1.?)1824. French Oriental (especially Persian) Scholar. Son of a farmer, Antoine Langlès and Marie Levavasseur, according to his own claim, of local gentry. Joined the army, but was sickly and quitted after the disappointment of being not sent to…
LAMOTTE, Étienne Paul Marie. Dinant, prov. Namur 21.2.1903 — Brussels 5.5.1983. Monseigneur. Belgian Indologist and Catholic Priest. Professor in Louvain. Born in a big family as the son of the court officer and historian Georges Lamotte (1861–1952). After classical education in Dinant took ecclesiastic career like his brother. Now studied…
SCHOTT, Wilhelm Christian. Mainz 3.9.1807 — Berlin 21.1.1889. German Fenno-Ugric and Central Asian Scholar, and Sinologist. Son of merchant Johann Wilhelm Schott and Elisabeth Wahl. Started as theology student at Giessen in 1819-21, but then switched to Oriental languages and studied them at Halle, first Arabic (Ph.D. 1823), soon also…
STAËL-HOLSTEIN, Alexander Wilhelm, Baron von (Aleksandr Avgustovič fon Stal’-Gol’štejn). Waist, Livonia (now Tõstamaa in SW Estonia) 20.12.1876 (1.1.1877) — Peiping (Peking) 16.3.1937. Russian/Estonian (German of Livonia) Indologist and Buddhist Scholar, after the revolution in China. Professor in Beijing. Born in a family of Livonian German nobility, son of August, Baron von…
SPECHT, Edouard Prosper Emmanuel. Paris 26.2.1843 — Paris 2.3.1906. French Sinologist. Student of Pauthier and St. Julien. From 1892 until death taught Chinese at É.P.H.É., Section des sciences historiques et philologiques. As a Sinologist he concentrated on works dealing with India or translated from Sanskrit. He was one of those…
SOPER, Alexander Coburn, III. Chicago 18.2.1904 — Rosemont, PA 12/13.1.1993. U.S. Art Historian. Son of Alexander Coburn Soper, Jr. (1872–1930), director of a lumber company, and Bertha G. Dunlop (1876–1952). Graduated B.A. 1925 from Hamilton College and studied architecture at Princeton (M.A. 1929). In 1935-38 living in Japan studying local…
SOOTHILL, William Edward. Halifax, Yorkshire 23.1.1861 — Oxford 13.5.1935. Rev. British Missionary in China, then Sinologist and Buddhist Scholar. Son of William Soothill (1836–1893), a textile worker. As youngster worked in a solicitor’s office in Halifax. Interrupted his studies at London University deciding to become a missionary. Ordained priest 1882.…
WULFF, Kurt. Hellerup 4.9.1881 — Copenhagen 4.5.1939. Danish Linguist (Indologist, South-East and East Asian Scholar and Sinologist). Librarian in Copenhagen. Son of Peter Wulff (1841–1898), a cigar manufacturer, and Emma Catharina Mathilde Heydorn (1846–1926), a Holsteinian (German, but politically on Danish side) family. Matriculated in 1900, studied classics at Copenhagen,…
WELLER, Friedrich. Markneukirchen, Vogtland 22.7.1889 — Leipzig 19.11.1980. German Indologist. Professor in Leipzig. The only child of Friedrich Wilhelm Weller (1854–1944), a violin maker, and Marie Wettengel (1860–1953). Educated at local village school and from 1901 at Realgymnasium in Plauen. From 1909 studied at Leipzig, first Romance and Germanic philology,…
WATTERS, Thomas. Newtownards, County Down, Ireland 9.2.1840 — Ealing (London) 10.1.1901. British (of Northern Ireland) Diplomat and Sinologist. Son of a Presbyterian minister, Rev. Thomas Watters, a Presbyterian minister, and Elizabeth Marshall Clendinning, educated at home. From 1857 studies at Queen’s College, Belfast, B.A. 1861 and M.A. 1862 Queen’s University.…