SIEGFRIED, Rudolf Thomas. Dessau 1830 — Dublin 10.1.1863. German IE and Celtic Scholar in Ireland. Professor in Dublin. From Dessau. Studied 1850-51 at Tübingen under Roth, then at Berlin under Bopp and Weber, became soon interested in Celtology and went to England to write a comparative grammar. After reading the work…
SHAFER, Robert Lloyd (Schafer). 1893 — 1969. U.S. Linguist and Sino-Tibetan scholar. Ph.D. Director of Sino-Tibetan Linguistic Project at U.C. Berkeley. Famous, but rather much criticised for his brave hypotheses. Publications: “Nahālī, a linguistic study in paleoethnography”, HJAS 5, 1940, 346-371; “Linguistics in History”, JAOS 67, 1947, 296-305; other articles.…
SCHIEFNER, Franz Anton von (Anton Antonovič Šifner). Reval (Tallinn) 6.(18.)7.1817 — St. Petersburg 4.(16.)11.1879. Russian (German of Estonia) Indologist and Tibetan Scholar. Academician in St.Petersburg. Son of Franz Schiefner (1774–1848), a glass merchant who had moved to Estonia from Bohemia, and Christiane Schneider. After school in Reval began in 1836 studies of…
SCHEFTELOWITZ, Isidor Isaac. Sandersleben, Anhalt 1.5.1875 — Oxford 17/18.12.1934. German (Jewish) Indo-Iranian Scholar. Professor and Rabbi in Köln. Son of Benjamin Scheftelowitz (1848–1918, a rabbi and teacher) and Jenny Yohana Epstein (1849–1909). After school in Königsberg worked in trade, from 1897 studies at Königsberg and Berlin. Ph.D. 1901 Königsberg (under…
SCERBO, Francesco. Marcellinara (Catanzaro, Calabria) 7.10.1849 — 13.10.Rome 1927. Italian Linguist and Oriental (Hebrew & Sanskrit) Scholar. Professor in Florence. Of modest origin, son of Giacinto Pietro Scerbo and Maria Riglione. From 1863 studies at seminary of Nicastro. Ordained priest 1873. Continued his studies at Florence concentrating on Semitics, but…
SAUSSURE, Ferdinand de. Geneva 26.9.1857 — Vufflens-le-Château, Vaud 22.2.1913. Swiss Linguist. Professor in Geneva. Son of Henri Louis Frédéric de Saussure (1829–1905), a mineralogist and entomologist, and Louise de Pourtalès, the family was originally of Lorraine nobility, settled in Switzerland in the 16th century. His brother was Sinologist Léopold de…
SALYS, Antanas (Anthony). Reketė, North-West Lithuania 21.7.1902— Philadelphia 31.7.1972. Lithuanian IE and Baltic Linguist, later in the U.S.A. Educated in Telsini. Studies of comparative linguistics, Slavic and Lithuanian at Kaunas and Leipzig (Trautmann). Ph.D. 1929 Leipzig. In 1930-39 PD of IE at Vytautas University in Kaunas, developed experimental phonetics of…
ŞĂINEANU, Lazăr (Lazare Sainéan, originally Eliezer Schein, Lazăr Şain). Ploieşti 23.4.1859 — Paris 11.5.1934. Romanian Romance Linguist, also interested in IE and Sanskrit. Born in a modest Jewish family, son of Moisi Schein, a house painter and amateur artist. Studies at Bucharest under Haşdeu, Georgian, et al., further studies in…
WOOD, Francis Asbury. Point Bluff, Wis. 17.1.1859 — La Jolla, Calif. 19.6.1948. U.S. IE and Germanic Linguist. Professor in Chicago. Son of Rev. Harvey Colcord Wood and Ann Jane Ellis. Educated at Northwestern University (A.B. 1880, A.M. 1883). In 1988-90 further studies at Göttingen in Germany. In 1890-93 Professor of…
WOLFENDEN, Stuart N. 1889 — 28.12.1938 (when 47). U.S. Tibeto-Burman Linguist. At University of California, Berkeley. Wolfenden was one of the pioneers of comparative Tibeto-Burman linguistics. Publications: Outlines of Tibeto-Burman Linguistic Morphology with special reference to the prefixes, infixes and suffixes of classical Tibetan and the languages of the Kachin, Bodo,…