Abraham Wheelocke

Abraham Wheelock[1] (1593 in Whitchurch, Shropshire – 1653) was an English linguist. He was the first Adams Professor of Arabic at the University of Cambridge, from around 1632. According to Robert Irwin[2] he regarded it as part of his academic duty to discourage students from taking up the subject. Thomas Hyde was one of his pupils.

Wheelock was appointed librarian of the "Public Library" (i.e. Cambridge University Library) in 1629,[3] and was also Reader in Anglo-Saxon. In 1632 he oversaw the transferral of Thomas van Erpe's collection of oriental books and manuscripts to Cambridge University Library after its purchase by George Villiers, which brought with it the first book in Chinese to be added to the Library's collections.[4] He produced the editio princeps of the Old English version of Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People and the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (1643–4).[5] In the same work he published an important edition—and the first in England—of Bede's Ecclesiastical History in its original Latin text[6] opposite the Old English version, along with Anglo-Saxon laws. Many of the notes in this edition consist of the Old English homilies of Aelfric of Eynsham, which Wheelocke translated himself into Latin. In the following year (1644), London publisher Cornelius Bee put another, enlarged edition out which also included an updated version of William Lambarde's legal text "Archaionomia." This text was likely a collaboration between Wheelock and his friend Sir Roger Twysden.[7]

He graduated MA from Trinity College, Cambridge in 1618, and became Fellow of Clare College, Cambridge in 1619.[8][9]

Quatuor evangeliorum domini nostri Jesu Christi versio Persica Syriacam & Arabicam suavissimè redolens[10] was a trilingual version of the Four Gospels, published in the same year as the London Polyglot, to which he also contributed.

References

  1. ↑ There are many variations on his name, including: Wheelock, Whelocke, Whelock, or Wheloc. However, he always uses the spelling of "Wheelock" unless he signs a Latin document where he uses "Whelocus." The alternate spellings of Wheelock's name are used by others.
  2. ↑ Irwin, Robert (2006) For Lust of Knowing, p. 98.
  3. ↑ "History of the Collections". Cambridge University Library. Retrieved 25 July 2016.
  4. ↑ "Chinese Works". Cambridge Digital Library. Retrieved 25 July 2016.
  5. ↑  Plummer, Charles (1911). "Anglo-Saxon Chronicle". In Chisholm, Hugh. Encyclopædia Britannica. 2 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. (Referred to as "Wheloc")
  6. ↑ David C. Douglas, English Scholars (1939), p. 73.
  7. ↑ Oates, JCT (1986). Cambridge University Library: A History. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge UP. p. 167.
  8. ↑ "Wheelock, Abraham (WHLK611A)". A Cambridge Alumni Database. University of Cambridge.
  9. ↑ Concise Dictionary of National Biography
  10. ↑ Quatuor evangeliorum domini nostri Jesu Christi versio Persica Syriacam & Arabicam suavissimè redolens: ad verba & mentem Græci textus sideliter & venustè concinnata. Codicibus tribus manuscriptis ex Oriente in academias utrasque Anglorum perlatis, operosè invicem diligentè que collatis. Per Abrahamum Whelocum linguæ Arabicæ, & Saxonicæ, in academis Cantabrigiensi professorem, & publicum bibliothecarium. Sub auspiciis & impensis mecœnatis præcellentissimi, integerrimi virtute, historiarum optimarum notitiâ undique politissimi, D. Thomæ Adams viri patritii, nuper dni prætoris florentissimæ civitatis Londini, munificentissimi, honoratissimi. [WorldCat.org] (Latin preface, text Persian (now known as Western Farsi) and Latin in parallel columns; printed in London by James Flesher.)
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