William Dwight Whitney
| William D. Whitney | |
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Portrait of Whitney
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| Born |
William Dwight Whitney February 9, 1827 Northhampton, Massachusetts |
| Died | June 7, 1894 (aged 67) New Haven, Connecticut |
| Education |
Williams College Humboldt University of Berlin University of Tübingen |
| Occupation | Linguist, philologist |
| Employer | Yale University |
| Spouse(s) | Elizabeth Wooster Baldwin |
| Children |
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William Dwight Whitney (/ˈwɪtni/; February 9, 1827 – June 7, 1894) was an American linguist, philologist, and lexicographer known for his work on Sanskrit grammar and Vedic philology as well as his influential view of language as a social institution. He was the first president of the American Philological Association and editor-in-chief of The Century Dictionary.
William Dwight Whitney was born in Northampton, Massachusetts on February 9, 1827. His father was Josiah Dwight Whitney (1786–1869) of the New England Dwight family. His mother was Sarah Williston (1800–1833).
He entered Williams College at fifteen, graduating in 1845. He continued studying and worked at a bank in Northampton for several years, then assisted his older brother Josiah Whitney on a geological survey of the Lake Superior region in 1849. On this expedition, he began the study of Sanskrit in his leisure hours. Around this time Whitney was living at Yale University in Connecticut. In 1850 he then left the United States to study philology, and especially Sanskrit, in Germany. There, he spent his winters at Berlin studying under Franz Bopp and Albrecht Weber, and his summers were devoted to research under Rudolph von Roth at Tübingen. It was during his time in Germany that Whitney began a major life project, 'preparation of an edition and translation of the Atharva-veda'.
He gained wide reputation for his scholarship in the field. In 1853, Yale University offered Whitney a position as 'Professor of Sanskrit' ‒ a position made just for him and the first of its kind in the United States. (It was not until 1861, however, that he received his doctoral degree from the University of Breslau.) He also taught modern languages at the Sheffield Scientific School, and served as secretary to the American Oriental Society from 1857 until he became its president in 1884.
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