Sir George Abraham Grierson (7 January 1851 – 9 March 1941) was an Irish administrator and
linguist
Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. It is called a scientific study because it entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise analysis of all aspects of language, particularly its nature and structure. Linguis ...
in
British India
The provinces of India, earlier presidencies of British India and still earlier, presidency towns, were the administrative divisions of British governance on the Indian subcontinent. Collectively, they have been called British India. In one ...
. He worked in the
Indian Civil Service
The Indian Civil Service (ICS), officially known as the Imperial Civil Service, was the higher civil service of the British Empire in India during British rule in the period between 1858 and 1947.
Its members ruled over more than 300 million ...
but an interest in philology and linguistics led him to pursue studies in the languages and folklore of India during his postings in Bengal and Bihar. He published numerous studies in the journals of learned societies and wrote several books during his administrative career but proposed a formal linguistic survey at the Oriental Congress in 1886 at Vienna. The Congress recommended the idea to the British Government and he was appointed superintendent of the newly created
Linguistic Survey of India
The Linguistic Survey of India (LSI) is a comprehensive survey of the languages of British India, describing 364 languages and dialects. The Survey was first proposed by George Abraham Grierson, a member of the Indian Civil Service and a linguist ...
in 1898. He continued the work until 1928, surveying people across the British Indian territory, documenting spoken languages, recording voices, written forms and was responsible in documenting information on 179 languages, defined by him through a test of mutual unintelligibility, and 544 dialects which he placed in five language families. He published the findings of the Linguistic Survey in a series that consisted of 19 volumes.
Biography
Grierson was born in
Glenageary
Glenageary ( ga, Gleann na gCaorach , meaning "Glen of the Sheep") is an area in the suburbs of Dún Laoghaire–Rathdown, Ireland. While there is no officially defined boundary, it is surrounded by the areas of Dalkey, Dún Laoghaire, Glasthul ...
,
County Dublin
"Action to match our speech"
, image_map = Island_of_Ireland_location_map_Dublin.svg
, map_alt = map showing County Dublin as a small area of darker green on the east coast within the lighter green background of ...
. His father and grandfather (
George Grierson
George Allison Grierson (April 11, 1867–October 18, 1931) was a politician in Manitoba, Canada. He served in the Legislative Assembly of Manitoba from 1914 to 1922, and was a cabinet minister in the government of Tobias Norris. Grierso ...
) were well-known Dublin printers and publishers. His mother Isabella was the daughter of Henry Ruxton of Ardee. He was educated at
St. Bees School, and from the age of 13 at
Shrewsbury
Shrewsbury ( , also ) is a market town, civil parish, and the county town of Shropshire, England, on the River Severn, north-west of London; at the 2021 census, it had a population of 76,782. The town's name can be pronounced as either 'Sh ...
. He then went up to
Trinity College, Dublin
, name_Latin = Collegium Sanctae et Individuae Trinitatis Reginae Elizabethae juxta Dublin
, motto = ''Perpetuis futuris temporibus duraturam'' (Latin)
, motto_lang = la
, motto_English = It will last i ...
, where he was a student of mathematics. Grierson qualified for the
Indian Civil Service
The Indian Civil Service (ICS), officially known as the Imperial Civil Service, was the higher civil service of the British Empire in India during British rule in the period between 1858 and 1947.
Its members ruled over more than 300 million ...
in 1871 ranking twenty-eighth for the year. He continued studies at Trinity College for two probationary years where he was influenced by
Robert Atkinson, professor of oriental languages. He took a deep interest in languages, won prizes for studies in
Sanskrit
Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had diffused there from the northwest in the late ...
and
Hindustani before leaving for the
Bengal Presidency
The Bengal Presidency, officially the Presidency of Fort William and later Bengal Province, was a subdivision of the British Empire in India. At the height of its territorial jurisdiction, it covered large parts of what is now South Asia and ...
in 1873.
First posted to
Bankipore (Patna) in Bihar, he became Magistrate and Collector at
Patna
Patna (
), historically known as Pataliputra, is the capital and largest city of the state of Bihar in India. According to the United Nations, as of 2018, Patna had a population of 2.35 million, making it the 19th largest city in India. ...
and still later in 1896, Opium Agent for
Bihar
Bihar (; ) is a state in eastern India. It is the 2nd largest state by population in 2019, 12th largest by area of , and 14th largest by GDP in 2021. Bihar borders Uttar Pradesh to its west, Nepal to the north, the northern part of West Be ...
. He married Lucy Elizabeth Jean, daughter of Maurice Henry Fitzgerald Collis, a Dublin surgeon, in 1880 but they had no children.
Grierson attended the Oriental Congress in 1886 at Vienna and proposed the idea of a formal linguistic in India. Grierson was a delegate of the Royal Asiatic Society along with Dr
Theodor Duka,
Albert Terrien de Lacouperie
Albert Étienne Jean-Baptiste Terrien de Lacouperie (23 November 1844 – 11 October 1894) was a French orientalist, specialising in comparative philology. He published a number of books on early Asian and Middle-Eastern languages, initial ...
,
Cecil Bendall
Cecil Bendall (1 July 1856 – 14 March 1906) was an English scholar, a professor of Sanskrit at University College London and later at the University of Cambridge.
Bendall was educated at the City of London School and at the University of Cambr ...
, and
R. N. Cust. At the Congress it was noted that the number of Indian languages was unknown with estimates varying from 20 to 250. A resolution was passed urging the Government to undertake a 'deliberate systematic survey of the languages of India.' The signatories included
Karl Bühler
Karl Ludwig Bühler (27 May 1879 – 24 October 1963) was a German psychologist and linguist. In psychology he is known for his work in gestalt psychology, and he was one of the founders of the Würzburg School of psychology. In linguistics he ...
,
Max Müller
Friedrich Max Müller (; 6 December 1823 – 28 October 1900) was a German-born philologist and Orientalist, who lived and studied in Britain for most of his life. He was one of the founders of the western academic disciplines of Indian ...
,
Monier Williams
Sir Monier Monier-Williams (; né Williams; 12 November 1819 – 11 April 1899) was a British scholar who was the second Boden Professor of Sanskrit at Oxford University, England. He studied, documented and taught Asian languages, especially ...
and Grierson. The recommendation was made to the British Government and in 1898 he was appointed Superintendent of the newly formed Linguistic Survey of India. For the survey a standard set of materials was sought. He had government officials collect material for every language, dialect, and subdialect, going from village to village and sampling across the classes and sexes. He provided forms and instructional material to his correspondents.
He sought a version of the parable of the prodigal son, oral narratives and a predefined list of 241 words and phrases (this list had been made by Sir George Campbell in 1866). The parable was chosen because 'it contains the three personal pronouns, most of the cases found in the declension of nouns, and the present, past, and future tenses of the verb'. The survey classified the languages of 290,000,000 people. In 1900 he moved to England "for convenience of consulting European libraries and scholars". By 1903 most of the data had come in and he retired from the Indian Civil Service. He spent the following thirty years editing the enormous amount of material gathered
[ and worked briefly in collaboration with the Norwegian linguist Sten Konow (who contributed to volume III on Tibetan languages).] On 8 May 1928 the completion of the Linguistic Survey of India was celebrated at the Criterion Restaurant
The Criterion Restaurant is an opulent restaurant complex facing Piccadilly Circus in the heart of London. It was built by architect Thomas Verity in '' Neo-Byzantine'' style for the partnership Spiers and Pond, which opened it in 1873. Apar ...
by the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland with Lord Birkenhead proposing the toast.
Grierson published scholarly works throughout his career: on the dialects and peasant life of Bihar, on Hindi
Hindi (Devanāgarī: or , ), or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi (Devanagari: ), is an Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in the Hindi Belt region encompassing parts of northern, central, eastern, and western India. Hindi has been de ...
literature, on bhakti
''Bhakti'' ( sa, भक्ति) literally means "attachment, participation, fondness for, homage, faith, love, devotion, worship, purity".See Monier-Williams, ''Sanskrit Dictionary'', 1899. It was originally used in Hinduism, referring to d ...
, and on linguistics
Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. It is called a scientific study because it entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise analysis of all aspects of language, particularly its nature and structure. Linguis ...
. His contemporaries noted both his lack of sympathy for Advaita Vedanta
''Advaita Vedanta'' (; sa, अद्वैत वेदान्त, ) is a Hinduism, Hindu sādhanā, a path of spiritual discipline and experience, and the oldest extant tradition of the Āstika and nāstika, orthodox Hindu school Ved ...
, which he regarded as "pandit religion," and his "warm appreciation of the monotheistic devotion of the country folk". He also published on literary texts and writers, including a paper on Kalidasa in 1877.
Most of Grierson's later work deals with linguistics. In a celebratory account of his life, F. W. Thomas
Frederick William Thomas (21 March 1867 – 6 May 1956), usually cited as F. W. Thomas, was an English Indologist and Tibetologist.
Life
Thomas was born on 21 March 1867 in Tamworth, Staffordshire. After schooling at King Edward's School, Bir ...
and R. L. Turner refer to the extensive publications of the Linguistic Survey of India as "a great Imperial museum, representing and systematically classifying the linguistic botany of India".
Grierson died in Camberley
Camberley is a town in the Borough of Surrey Heath in Surrey, England, approximately south-west of Central London. The town is in the far west of the county, close to the borders of Hampshire and Berkshire. Once part of Windsor Forest, Cambe ...
, Surrey, England at Rathfarnham, the house he built and named after his grandfather's castle in Dublin.
Honours
* 1894: Appointed CIE
* 1912: Knighted as a Knight Commander of the Order of the Indian Empire
The Most Eminent Order of the Indian Empire is an order of chivalry founded by Queen Victoria on 1 January 1878. The Order includes members of three classes:
#Knight Grand Commander (GCIE)
#Knight Commander ( KCIE)
#Companion ( CIE)
No appoi ...
(KCIE)
* 1917-1939: Fellow of the British Academy
The British Academy is the United Kingdom's national academy for the humanities and the social sciences.
It was established in 1902 and received its royal charter in the same year. It is now a fellowship of more than 1,000 leading scholars span ...
* 1927: President of the Gypsy Lore Society
The Gypsy Lore Society was founded in Great Britain in 1888 to unite persons interested in the history and lore of Gypsies and rovers and to establish closer contacts among scholars studying aspects of such cultures.
History
David MacRitchie w ...
* 1928: Appointed to the Order of Merit (OM)
* 1929: Awarded the Sir William Jones Gold Medal(established by the Asiatic Society of Bengal) and the Campbell Memorial Medal from the Royal Asiatic Society of Bengal.
* 1902: Honorary Doctorate of Letters
Doctor of Letters (D.Litt., Litt.D., Latin: ' or ') is a terminal degree in the humanities that, depending on the country, is a higher doctorate after the Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) degree or equivalent to a higher doctorate, such as the Doctor ...
(D.Litt.) from the University of Dublin
The University of Dublin ( ga, Ollscoil Átha Cliath), corporately designated the Chancellor, Doctors and Masters of the University of Dublin, is a university located in Dublin, Ireland. It is the degree-awarding body for Trinity College Dubl ...
.
He was also an honorary member of the Nagari Pracharini Sabha
The Nagari Pracharini Sabha (Society for Promotion of Nagari), also known as Kashi Nagari Pracharini Sabha, was an organization founded in 1893 at the Queen's College, Varanasi for the promotion of the Devanagari script over the more common K ...
at Benares. He was an honorary fellow of the Royal Asiatic Society of Bengal, the Bihar and Orissa Research Society, the Modern Language Association, Linguistic Society of India, and the Bangla Sahitya Parishad. He received several other honorary degrees from the universities of Halle, Cambridge, Oxford, and Bihar. A literary award of India, the Dr. George Grierson Award, was named in his honour in the late 20th century.
Publications
Grierson was a prolific writer. On his 85th birthday, an article was contributed in his honour and published by the School of Oriental Studies which included a list of Grierson's publications occupying 22 pages. The following are a few selected books and papers:
*
*
* Grierson, George Abraham. ''Seven Grammars of the Dialects and Subdialects of the Bihari Language (1883–87)'' 3 vols.
*
* Grierson George Abraham, ''Linguistic Survey of India
The Linguistic Survey of India (LSI) is a comprehensive survey of the languages of British India, describing 364 languages and dialects. The Survey was first proposed by George Abraham Grierson, a member of the Indian Civil Service and a linguist ...
,'' 11 Vols. in 19 Parts
*
*
*
* The Lay of Alha: A Saga of Rajput Chivalry as Sung by Minstrels of Northern India, SAMP early 20th-century Indian books project, Editor Sir George Abraham Grierson, Translated by William Waterfield, Oxford University Press, H. Milford, 1923
* Grierson, George Abraham 1909. Gleanings from the Bhakta-Mala. Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society: 607–644.
* Grierson, George Abraham 1910. Gleanings from the Bhakta-Mala. Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society: 269–306.
* Grierson, George Abraham 1910. Gleanings from the Bhakta-Mala. Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society: 87–109.
*Grierson, George Abraham, 2007
Kachhi Ji Bhasa VIgnanik Vadhod (ક્છી જ્ી ભાસા વ̃ગ્ નાનીક્ વાધૉડ઼્)
Translated in Kachhi Language from Linguistic Survey of India, Volume 8, Part 1 (1919) by Manilal Gala, Vadhod PIrkasan: 1–122.
See also
* Herbert Hope Risley
References
Sources
* Thomas, F. W. and R. L. Turner. 1941. ''George Abraham Grierson 1851–1941''. London: Humphrey Milford Amen House, E.C.
* Thomas, F. W., and R. L. Turner. 1942. George Abraham Grierson 1851–1941. Proceedings of the British Academy, 28:283–306.
External links
BNF Gallica
- digitized gramophone recordings from the Linguistic Survey of India
Digital South Asia Library - partly defunct
- gramophone recordings from the Linguistic Survey of India (LSI)
*
Photos of Sir George Abraham Grierson
{{DEFAULTSORT:Grierson, George Abraham
Linguists from the United Kingdom
British Indologists
Irish people of Scottish descent
People from Glenageary
1851 births
1941 deaths
People educated at St Bees School
Members of the Order of Merit
Knights Commander of the Order of the Indian Empire
Indian Civil Service (British India) officers