Abraham Valentine Williams Jackson,

L.H.D. The degree of Doctor of Humane Letters (; DHumLitt; DHL; or LHD) is an honorary degree awarded to those who have distinguished themselves through humanitarian and philanthropic contributions to society. The criteria for awarding the degree differ ...

Ph.D. A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields. Because it is a ...

LL.D. Legum Doctor (Latin: “teacher of the laws”) (LL.D.) or, in English, Doctor of Laws, is a doctorate-level academic degree in law or an honorary degree, depending on the jurisdiction. The double “L” in the abbreviation refers to the early ...

(February 9, 1862 – August 8, 1937) was an American specialist on

Indo-European languages The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the overwhelming majority of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and the northern Indian subcontinent. Some European languages of this family, English, French, Portuguese, Russian, Dutc ...

Biography

He was born in

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 ...

on February 9, 1862. He graduated from

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 ...

in 1883. He was a fellow in letters there from 1883 to 1886, and an instructor in

Anglo-Saxon The Anglo-Saxons were a Cultural identity, cultural group who inhabited England in the Early Middle Ages. They traced their origins to settlers who came to Britain from mainland Europe in the 5th century. However, the ethnogenesis of the Anglo- ...

and the Iranian languages from 1887 to 1890. After studying at the

University of Halle Martin Luther University of Halle-Wittenberg (german: Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg), also referred to as MLU, is a public, research-oriented university in the cities of Halle and Wittenberg and the largest and oldest university i ...

from 1887 to 1889 he became an

adjunct professor An adjunct professor is a type of academic appointment in higher education who does not work at the establishment full-time. The terms of this appointment and the job security of the tenure vary in different parts of the world, however the genera ...

of English language and literature. In 1895, he was appointed public lecturer and also appointed to the newly founded professorship of Indo-Iranian languages at

, where he remained until 1935. He was well known as a lecturer on

English literature English literature is literature written in the English language from United Kingdom, its crown dependencies, the Republic of Ireland, the United States, and the countries of the former British Empire. ''The Encyclopaedia Britannica'' defines E ...

and the Orient. In 1901, during a visit to

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

and

Ceylon Sri Lanka (, ; si, ශ්‍රී ලංකා, Śrī Laṅkā, translit-std=ISO (); ta, இலங்கை, Ilaṅkai, translit-std=ISO ()), formerly known as Ceylon and officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, is an ...

, he received special attention from the

Parsees Parsis () or Parsees are an ethnoreligious group of the Indian subcontinent adhering to Zoroastrianism. They are descended from Persians who migrated to Medieval India during and after the Arab conquest of Iran (part of the early Muslim co ...

, who presented to Columbia a valuable collection of

Zoroastrian Zoroastrianism is an Iranian religion and one of the world's oldest organized faiths, based on the teachings of the Iranian-speaking prophet Zoroaster. It has a dualistic cosmology of good and evil within the framework of a monotheistic on ...

manuscripts in recognition of the instruction there given by him in their ancient texts. In 1903 he made a second journey to the Orient, this time visiting

Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...

. He also visited

Central Asia Central Asia, also known as Middle Asia, is a subregion, region of Asia that stretches from the Caspian Sea in the west to western China and Mongolia in the east, and from Afghanistan and Iran in the south to Russia in the north. It includes t ...

sometime before 1918. Jackson's grammar of

Avestan Avestan (), or historically Zend, is an umbrella term for two Old Iranian languages: Old Avestan (spoken in the 2nd millennium BCE) and Younger Avestan (spoken in the 1st millennium BCE). They are known only from their conjoined use as the scrip ...

, the language used in the Zoroastrian scriptures, is still considered to be the seminal work on the topic. Jackson was one of the directors of the

American Oriental Society The American Oriental Society was chartered under the laws of Massachusetts on September 7, 1842. It is one of the oldest learned societies in America, and is the oldest devoted to a particular field of scholarship. The Society encourages basic ...

. He died on August 8, 1937.

Publications

* ''A Hymn of Zoroaster'' (1888) * ''An Avesta Grammar in Comparison with Sanskrit'' (1892) * ''An Avesta Reader'' (1893) * '' Avesta, the Bible of Zoroaster'' (1893) * ''Zoroaster, the Prophet of Ancient Iran'' (1898) * ''Die iranische Religion'' (1900) * ''Persia, Past and Present'' (1906) * Descriptive Catalogue of the Persian MSS. in the Metropolitan Museum of Art’ (1913) * ''From Constantinople to the Home of Omar Khayyam'' (1911) * ''A Descriptive Catalogue of the Persian Manuscripts Presented to the

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...

by A. S. Cochran'' (1914), with A. Yohannan * ''Early Persian Poetry'' (1920) * (Editor). Full text online at ibiblio.org (All nine volumes in HTML form, complete, chapter-by-chapter, with all illustrations, footnotes and a combined index) He made many contributions to the ''Journal'' of the American Oriental Society. He edited the ''

Columbia University Indo-Iranian Series The ''Columbia University Indo-Iranian Series'' is a 13-volume book series edited by A. V. Williams Jackson and published by the Columbia University Press between 1901 and 1932. Volumes See also *''Harvard Oriental Series'' *Loeb Classical Libra ...

'' (13 vols., New York, 1901–32). p. 257

References

Sources

''New General Catalog of Old Books and Authors''
* *

External links

on Vohuman.Org * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Jackson, A. V. Williams 1937 deaths 1862 births Linguists from the United States American translators Columbia College (New York) alumni Columbia University faculty Historical linguists University of Halle alumni Iranologists American expatriates in Germany