Joseph Wright (linguist)

Joseph Wright ( * 1855 in Thackley, England, † 1930) was an English philologist and Dialektologe.

Life

Joseph Wright was born in 1855 in Thackley near Bradford ( Yorkshire, England) in poor conditions. The age of six he began to work in a woolen mill and was until the age of fifteen years Illiterate, brought, however, as a teenager, in addition to his work in a factory in the West Riding even reading, writing and arithmetic at. In an evening school Wright also learned French and German, he soon brought himself even in Latin. At 18, Wright opened at home a night school to earn something. When he therefore was 21 and of legal age to Wright undertook to study in Germany. He sat on the boat to Holland and emigrated to walk to Heidelberg, where he so different languages ​​such as Sanskrit, Gothic, Old Bulgarian, Lithuanian, Russian, Old Norse, Old Saxon, Old and Middle High German and Old English studied at the university there. Even in Germany, he received his doctorate. After returning to England, he as an associate professor for comparative philology at the University of Oxford was finally offered that he accepted. From 1901 to 1925 he was a professor at Oxford. His most well -known student was JRR Tolkien.

Wife

In 1896 he married Elizabeth Mary Lea, with whom he jointly published the book Old and Middle English Grammars. She also wrote the book Rustic Speech and Folklore (Oxford University Press 1913), in which she described her numerous trips to the Yorkshire Dales. After Wright's death, she wrote a biography about his life: The Life of Joseph Wright.

Works

The more than 5,000 -page six-volume English Dialect Dictionary ( EDD), which was created 1896-1905 under the leadership of hundreds of employees and Wright with the help of many existing glossaries, Wright 's most valuable legacy.