About
Sir William Jones, born in London in 1746, was a British philologist, orientalist, and jurist. An accomplished polyglot, he mastered thirteen languages and had a working knowledge of twenty-eight others. Appointed judge to the Supreme Court of Bengal in 1783, he founded the Asiatic Society of Calcutta in 1784. In his 1786 discourse, he proposed that Sanskrit, Greek, and Latin share a common origin, laying the foundations of comparative philology and Indo-European studies. He translated Kālidāsa's Sanskrit drama Sacontalá, which influenced European Romanticism. He died in Calcutta in 1794.
* 1746-09-28 — † 1794-04-27
Major works
- Histoire de Nader Chah (1770)translation
- Poems, Consisting Chiefly of Translations from the Asiatick Languages (1772)poetry collection
- Essay on the Law of Bailments (1781)legal essay
- Sacontalá (1789)translation
- On the Gods of Greece, Italy, and India (1784)comparative essay
Key milestones
- 1783Appointed puisne judge to the Supreme Court of Bengal and knighted.
- 1784Founded the Asiatic Society of Calcutta and served as its first president.
- 1786Delivered his Third Anniversary Discourse, proposing a common origin for Sanskrit, Greek, and Latin.
Themes
Comparative philologyOrientalismLawTranslationComparative mythology
Sources: britannica.com · academic.oup.com