Edith Frances Claflin (6 October 1875,

Quincy, Massachusetts Quincy ( ) is a coastal U.S. city in Norfolk County, Massachusetts, United States. It is the largest city in the county and a part of Greater Boston, Metropolitan Boston as one of Boston's immediate southern suburbs. Its population in 2020 was 1 ...

– 5 March 1953,

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

) was an American linguist, a noted scholar of

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

and

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

Career

Claflin earned her B.A. from

Radcliffe College Radcliffe College was a women's liberal arts college in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and functioned as the female coordinate institution for the all-male Harvard College. Considered founded in 1879, it was one of the Seven Sisters colleges and he ...

in 1897, graduating

magna cum laude Latin honors are a system of Latin phrases used in some colleges and universities to indicate the level of distinction with which an academic degree has been earned. The system is primarily used in the United States. It is also used in some So ...

and

Phi Beta Kappa The Phi Beta Kappa Society () is the oldest academic honor society in the United States, and the most prestigious, due in part to its long history and academic selectivity. Phi Beta Kappa aims to promote and advocate excellence in the liberal a ...

. She majored in Greek and Latin at Radcliffe, and continued her study of these subjects at

Bryn Mawr College Bryn Mawr College ( ; Welsh: ) is a women's liberal arts college in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania. Founded as a Quaker institution in 1885, Bryn Mawr is one of the Seven Sister colleges, a group of elite, historically women's colleges in the United St ...

from 1897 to 1899. As a Garrett European Fellow from Bryn Mawr, she spent 1899–1900 at the

American School of Classical Studies , native_name_lang = Greek , image = American School of Classical Studies at Athens.jpg , image_size = , image_alt = , caption = The ASCSA main building as seen from Mount Lykavittos , latin_name = , other_name = , former_name = , mo ...

Athens, Greece Athens ( ; el, Αθήνα, Athína ; grc, Ἀθῆναι, Athênai (pl.) ) is both the capital and largest city of Greece. With a population close to four million, it is also the seventh largest city in the European Union. Athens dominates ...

. She earned her PhD from Bryn Mawr in 1904, with a dissertation entitled, "The syntax of the Boetian dialect inscriptions," which was published by the Lord Baltimore Press in 1905. Following receipt of her doctorate, Claflin taught Greek and Latin at several secondary schools. She was an Instructor of Greek and Latin at the Prospect Hill School (Greenfield, Massachusetts) from 1901 to 1907; then head of the Classics Dept. at the

Monticello Seminary Monticello Seminary (also Monticello Female Seminary), founded in 1835, was an American seminary, junior college and academy in Godfrey, Illinois. The campus was the oldest female seminary in the west, before it closed in 1971. The buildings are n ...

(Godfrey, Illinois) from 1906 to 1913; and a Greek and Latin teacher at the

Laurel School Laurel School is a private school for girls in Shaker Heights, Ohio, United States. It was established in 1896 by Jennie Prentiss and operates on two campuses; the Lyman Campus in Shaker Heights and the Butler Campus in Novelty. Notable alumnae ...

(Cleveland, Ohio) from 1914 to 1916. She served as head of the Greek Department at Rosemary Hall Academy in Connecticut from 1916 to 1933. She moved to New York City in 1936, when she was appointed lecturer in Greek and Latin at

Barnard College Barnard College of Columbia University is a private women's liberal arts college in the borough of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded in 1889 by a group of women led by young student activist Annie Nathan Meyer, who petitioned Columbia ...

, where she stayed until her retirement in 1945. She taught a course in Medieval Latin at the

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

School of General Studies from 1936 until her death in 1953. Even though the demands of secondary school teaching limited the research opportunities available to Claflin, she managed to publish regularly in scholarly journals and was an active member of several scholarly societies. She was a founding member of the

Linguistic Society of America The Linguistic Society of America (LSA) is a learned society for the field of linguistics. Founded in New York City in 1924, the LSA works to promote the scientific study of language. The society publishes three scholarly journals: ''Language'', ...

(LSA) and participated actively in the society, attending meetings regularly from 1926 until her death and serving on its executive committee from 1943 to 1945. She published well-regarded papers in the LSA's journal, ''

Language Language is a structured system of communication. The structure of a language is its grammar and the free components are its vocabulary. Languages are the primary means by which humans communicate, and may be conveyed through a variety of met ...

'', as well as in the ''

American Journal of Philology The ''American Journal of Philology'' is a quarterly academic journal established in 1880 by the classical scholar Basil Lanneau Gildersleeve and published by the Johns Hopkins University Press. It covers the field of philology, and related areas ...

'' (AJP) and ''

Classical Philology Classics or classical studies is the study of classical antiquity. In the Western world, classics traditionally refers to the study of Classical Greek and Roman literature and their related original languages, Ancient Greek and Latin. Classics ...

'' (CP). She was known as an authority on the Indo-European middle voice (Claflin 1929, 1938, 1942, 1946). The

Linguistic Circle of New York The International Linguistic Association (ILA) was founded in 1943 as the Linguistic Circle of New York. Its founding members were academic linguists in the New York area, including many members of the École Libre des Hautes Études in exile. The m ...

established an Edith Claflin Memorial Fund in her honor in 1952.

Selected publications

* Claflin, Edith Frances. 1905. ''The syntax of the Boetian dialect inscriptions.'' ublished Baltimore, Md., The Lord Baltimore Press. Bryn Mawr College Monograph series, v. 3.* Claflin, Edith F. 1929. The hypothesis of the Italo-Celtic impersonal passive in -r-. ''Language'' 5, 232–50. * Claflin, Edith F. 1938. The Indo-European middle ending -r-. ''Language'' 14, 1–9. * Claflin, Edith F. 1942. The middle verb vidêrï. ''Language'' 18, 26–32. * Claflin, Edith F. 1943. Videor as a Deponent in Plautus. ''AJP'' 64, 71–9. * Claflin, Edith F. 1943–4. Teaching the Art of Reading Latin. ''The Classical Journal'' 39, 130–6. * Claflin, Edith F. 1946. The Middle Voice in the ''De Senectute.'' ''AJP'' 67, 193–221.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Claflin, Edith Women linguists 1875 births 1953 deaths American Latinists Bryn Mawr College alumni Barnard College faculty Scholars of Ancient Greek Radcliffe College alumni