Jump to content

Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 15.djvu/132

From Wikisource
This page has been validated.
122
THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

the more important papers either written or edited by him, and published in the "Journal," may be named Rev. Ebenezer Burgess's translation of the "Sûrya-Siddhânta" (a Hindoo treatise on astronomy) 1860, with notes and an appendix; text, with notes, of the "Atharva-Veda Prâtiçâkhya" (1862); the text of the "Taittirîya Prâtiçâkhya" (1871), with English version, notes, and native commentary, the last two being grammatical treatises—the edition of the "Taittirîya" won for Professor Whitney from the Berlin Academy the Bopp—prize reviews of Lipsius's phonetic alphabet and of the opinions of Biot, Weber, and Müller on the lunar zodiac of India, Arabia, and China. He was a contributor to the great Sanskrit Dictionary of Böhtlingk and Roth (St. Petersburg, 1853-’67, seven volumes). In 1869 he aided in founding the American Philological Association, and was its first President. His work, "Language and the Study of Language" (2 vols., 1867, republished in 1874), was made up of a series of lectures, delivered first at the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, and repeated at the Lowell Institute, Boston; it was translated into German, and edited, with additions, by J. Jolly, under the title of "Die Sprachwissenschaft" (Munich, 1874). His principal contributions to the "Journal of the American Oriental Society," "The North American Review," "The New-Englander," and other periodicals, were collected and published in two volumes, entitled "Oriental and Linguistic Studies" (1873-’74). To the "International Scientific Series" he contributed a volume in 1875, entitled "The Life and Growth of Language," which was very favorably received both at home and abroad, having been translated into French, German, and Italian. He has prepared several school manuals for the use of students of the German language, viz., a grammar, a reader, a dictionary, and texts of certain of the German classics. In 1877 appeared his work, "Essentials of English Grammar." He has now in press, in Leipsic, a Sanskrit Grammar, in English and German editions.

We append a list of papers published at various dates by Professor Whitney, but not contained in either of the two collections named above: "Material and Form in Language" (1872); "φνσει or θεσει"—"Natural or Conventional" (1874); "A Botanico-Philological Problem" (1876). The foregoing were published in the "Journal of the American Philological Association." Peile's "Greek and Latin Etymology" (1873-'74; "transactions of the London Philological Society"); "On the History of the Vedic Texts" (1854; "Journal of the American Oriental Society"); "Contributions from the Atharva-Veda" (1856; in the same journal); on Lipsius's "Standard Alphabet" (1862; the same); "On the Jyotisha Observation of the Place of the Colures and the Date derivable from it" (1864; "Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society," London); "Are Languages Institutions?" (1875; "Contemporary Review"); "Müller's Rig-Veda and Commentary" (1876; "New-Englander"); "The value of Linguistic Science to Ethnology" (1867; in the same).