William Wright (Orientalist)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Bust of William Wright
William Wright's grave in the graveyard of St. Andrews Cathedral

William Wright (born January 17, 1830 in Mullye / Mallai, British India , † May 22, 1889 in Cambridge ) was an English orientalist .

Life

Wright was born on the border with Nepal . His father Captain Alexander Wright worked there in the service of the British East India Company . His mother, the widow of Captain John Gordon, was named Johanna Leonora Christina and was the daughter of Daniel Anthony Overbeek, the last Dutch governor of Chinsura . Wright was sent back to his British homeland to study, where he studied Semitic languages , Persian and Turkish at the University of St Andrews in Scotland, and later also at the University of Halle and the University of Leiden .

At the age of 25, Wright became Professor of Arabic at University College London . After only a year he moved to Trinity College in Dublin . After returning to England, he was employed at the Department of Manuscripts of the British Museum Library from 1861 to 1870, taking care of the Syrian and Ethiopian manuscripts, where he edited a catalog of Syrian manuscripts that is still indispensable today.

From 1870 until his death in 1889 he was professor of the Arabic language at the University of Cambridge . Here, his academic work focused primarily on Arabic grammar and Arabic poetry. Building on the Arabic grammar of P. Caspari, which he translated into English and supplemented to form an independent work, he researched the Arabic language and literature. So he gave z. B. Al-Mubarrids, Kamil '.

In 1887 he was accepted as a foreign member of the Order pour le merite for science and the arts . From 1868 he was a corresponding member of the Prussian Academy of Sciences and the Göttingen Academy of Sciences , from 1876 of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Saint Petersburg . In 1878 he became a member of the German Association for the Exploration of Palestine .

He died in Cambridge in 1889.

Fonts

A bibliography of his works, compiled by RL Benaly, can be found in: Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 1889, pp. 708-709.

  • The book of Jonah in four semitic versions: Chaldee, Syriac, Aethiopic and Arabic. London 1857.
  • Kamil (Al Mubarrid) - 11 volumes, 1864–82.
  • Contributions to the apocryphal literature of the New Testament. Collected and edited from Syriac manuscripts in the British Museum, with an English translation and notes. 1865.
  • The departure of my Lady Mary from this world. Edited from two Syriac MSS. in the British Museum, and translated by W. Wright. (1865) ( Journal of sacred literature and Biblical record for January and April, 1865)
  • The homilies of Aphraates, the Persian sage. [by] Aphraates, the Persian sage. (1869) Text in Syriac.
  • A Grammar of The Arabic Language. (London), Simon Wallenberg Press, Vol-1 & Vol-2 ISBN 1-84356-028-3 .
    • Arabic grammar, 2 volumes, reprinted 1970.
  • Catalog of Syriac Manuscripts in The British Museum acquired since the year 1838. 1870, (Volume 1 archive.org , Volume 2 archive.org , Volume 3 archive.org ).
  • Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles. Edited from Syriac manuscripts in the British Museum and other libraries by William Wright. (1871). In 2 vol., Syriac and English.
  • Fragments of the Turras mamlla nahraya or Syriac grammar of Jacob of Edessa. Edited from mss. in the British Museum and the Bodleian Library by W. Wright. (1871)
  • Fragments of the Curetonian Gospels. Ed. by W. Wright. (1872). Text Syriac.
  • Fragments of the Homilies of Cyril of Alexandria on the Gospel of S. Luke. (1874)
  • The chronicle of Joshua the stylite: composed in Syriac AD 507. With a translation into English and notes by W. Wright. (1882)
  • S. Ignatius. Revised texts with introductions, notes, dissertations, and translations. Gr., Lat., Eng.-Syriac remains of S. Ignatius. (1885)
  • Some apocryphal Psalms in Syriac. Proceedings of the Society of Biblical Archeology, June 1887
  • The book of Kalilah and Dimnah. Translated from Arabic into Syriac (1884). Text Syriac.
  • Lectures on the Comparative Grammar of the Semitic Languages. (Cambridge, 1890)
  • A short history of Syriac literature. (1894)
  • Epistolae Pilati et Herodis graece. (W. Wright's translation of the Syriac version.) Gr. & Eng. (1897)
  • Ecclesiastical history of Eusebius in Syriac. Edited from the manuscripts by William Wright and Norman McLean, with a collation of the ancient Armenian version by Adalbert Merx; translated from the Greek by CF Crusé. (1898) Text Syriac ( archive.org ).
  • A Catalog of the Syriac manuscripts preserved in the library of the University of Cambridge. By William Wright & Stanley Arthur Cook. (1901)

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Wright, William, Hon. LL.D. In: John Archibald Venn (Ed.): Alumni Cantabrigienses . A Biographical List of All Known Students, Graduates and Holders of Office at the University of Cambridge, from the Earliest Times to 1900. Part 2: From 1752 to 1900 , Volume 6 : Square – Zupitza . Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1954, pp. 599 ( venn.lib.cam.ac.uk Textarchiv - Internet Archive ).
  2. ↑ The Order Pour le Mérite for Science and the Arts. The members of the order. Mann, Berlin, Volume II, 1978, pp. 46–47 with a picture of a bust of Wright orden-pourlemerite.de (PDF; 372 kB).
  3. ↑ Holger Krahnke: The members of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen 1751-2001 (= Treatises of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen, Philological-Historical Class. Volume 3, Volume 246 = Treatises of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen, Mathematical-Physical Class. Series 3, volume 50). Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2001, ISBN 3-525-82516-1 , p. 264.
  4. ^ Journal of the German Palestine Association. Volume I, K. Baedeker, Leipzig 1878, p. VIII ( Textarchiv - Internet Archive ).
personal data
SURNAME Wright, William
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British Arabist
DATE OF BIRTH January 17, 1830
PLACE OF BIRTH Mullye / Mallai, British India
DATE OF DEATH May 22, 1889
Place of death Cambridge