Joseph Wright (linguist)

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Joseph Wright
Born 31 October 1855
Thackley
Died 27 February 1930
Main interests Germanic languages
English dialects
Major works English Dialect Dictionary

Joseph Wright FBA (31 October 1855 – 27 February 1930)[1] was an English philologist who rose from humble origins to become Professor of Comparative Philology at Oxford University.

Early life

Wright was born in Thackley, near Bradford in Yorkshire, the seventh son of Dufton Wright, a woollen cloth weaver and quarryman, and his wife Sarah Ann (née Atkinson).[1] He started work as a "donkey-boy" in a quarry at the age of six, leading a donkey-drawn cart full of tools to the smithy to be sharpened. He later became a bobbin doffer – responsible for removing and replacing full bobbins – in a Yorkshire mill in Sir Titus Salt's model village. Although he learnt his letters and numbers at the Salt's Factory School, he was unable to read a newspaper until he was 15. He later said of this time, "Reading and writing, for me, were as remote as any of the sciences".[2]

By now a wool-sorter earning £1 a week, Wright became increasingly fascinated with languages and began attending night-school to learn French, German and Latin, as well as maths and shorthand. At the age of 18 he even started his own night-school, charging his colleagues twopence a week.[3]

By 1876 he had saved £40 and could afford a term's study at the University of Heidelberg, although he walked from Antwerp to save money.

Returning to Yorkshire, Wright continued his studies at the Yorkshire College of Science (later the University of Leeds) while working as a schoolmaster. A former pupil of Wright's recalls that, "with a piece of chalk [he would] draw illustrative diagrams at the same time with each hand, and talk while he was doing it".[3]

He later returned to Heidelberg and in 1885 completed a Ph.D. on Qualitative and Quantitative Changes of the Indo-Germanic Vowel System in Greek.[2]

Career

In 1888, after his return from Germany, Wright was offered a post at Oxford University by Professor Max Müller, and became a lecturer to the Association for the Higher Education of Women and deputy lecturer in German at the Taylor Institution.[3]

From 1891 to 1901 he was Deputy Professor and from 1901 to 1925 Professor of Comparative Philology at Oxford.

He specialised in the Germanic languages and wrote a range of introductory grammars for Old English, Middle English, Old High German, Middle High German and Gothic which were still being revised and reprinted 50 years after his death. He also published a historical grammar of German.

He had a strong interest in English dialects and claimed that his 1893 Windhill Dialect Grammar was "the first grammar of its kind in England." Undoubtedly, his greatest achievement was the editing of the six-volume English Dialect Dictionary, which he published between 1898 and 1905, initially at his own expense. This remains a definitive work, a snapshot of English dialect speech at the end of the 19th century. In the course of his work on the Dictionary, he formed a committee to gather Yorkshire material, which gave rise in 1897 to the Yorkshire Dialect Society, which claims to be the world's oldest surviving dialect society. He was the author of the Dialect Test. Wright had been offered a position at a Canadian university, who would have paid him an annual salary of £500 – a very generous salary at the time. However, Wright opted to stay in Oxford and finish the Dialect Dictionary without any financial backing from a sponsor.

Wright's papers are in the Bodleian Library, Oxford.

Personal life

In 1896 he married Elizabeth Mary Lea (1863–1958), with whom he co-authored his Old and Middle English Grammars. She also wrote the book, Rustic Speech and Folklore (Oxford University Press 1913), in which she makes reference to their various walking and cycle trips into the Yorkshire Dales, as well as various articles and essays.

The couple had two children – Willie Boy and Mary – both of whom died in childhood.[2]

Wright and his wife were known for their hospitality to their students and would often invite a dozen or more, both men and women, to their home for Yorkshire Sunday teas. On these occasions Wright would perform his party trick of making his Aberdeen Terrier, Jack, lick his lips when Wright said the Gothic words for fig-tree – smakka bagms.[4]

Although Wright was a progressive to the extent that he believed women were entitled to a university education, he did not believe that women should be made voting members of the university, saying they were, "... less independent in judgement than men and apt to run in a body like sheep".[3]

Although his energies were for the most part directed towards his work, Wright also enjoyed gardening and followed Yorkshire cricket and football teams.[2]

He died of pneumonia on 27 February 1930. His last word was "Dictionary".[2] In 1932 his widow, Elizabeth, published a biography of Wright, The Life of Joseph Wright.[5]

Legacy

Wright was an important early influence on J. R. R. Tolkien, and was one of his tutors at Oxford: studying the Grammar of the Gothic Language with Wright seems to have been a turning-point in Tolkien's life.[6]

In the course of editing the Dictionary he corresponded regularly with Thomas Hardy.

Wright was greatly admired by Virginia Woolf, who writes of him in her diary that, "The triumph of learning is that it leaves something done solidly for ever. Everybody knows now about dialect, owing to his dixery."[7] He was the inspiration for the character of Mr Brook in The Pargiters, an early draft of The Years.

Notes

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Kellett, Arnold (2004). "Joseph Wright". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press. Retrieved 11 June 2011. 
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 Lunnon, Jenny (28 February 2008). "From woollen mills to dreaming spires". Oxford Mail. Retrieved 13 March 2011. 
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 "Idle scholar who brought local language to book". Oxford Today 22. 2010. Retrieved 13 March 2011. 
  4. ↑ Carpenter 1977, p. 64.
  5. ↑ Wright 1932.
  6. ↑ Carpenter 1977, pp. 63-64.
  7. ↑ Rowena, Fowler (2002). "Virginia Woolf: Lexicographer". English Language Notes xxix. Retrieved 13 March 2011. 

References

  • Carpenter, Humphrey (1977). Tolkien: A Biography. Ballantine Books. ISBN 0-04-928037-6. 
  • Wright, Elizabeth Mary (1932). The Life of Joseph Wright. Oxford University Press. 
  • Holder, R. W. (2005). The Dictionary Men. Their lives and times. Bath University Press. ISBN 0-86197-129-9. 
  • Jacqueline Simpson & Steve Roud, A Dictionary of English Folklore (Oxford University Press, 2000) – extract.

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