Description

A founding text of comparative philology, Franz Bopp's Vergleichende Grammatik was originally published in parts, beginning in 1833, and by the 1870s had appeared in three editions in German, as well as in English and French translations. Bopp (1791-1867), Professor of Sanskrit and Comparative Grammar at Berlin, set out to prove the relationships between Indo-European languages through detailed description of the grammatical features of Sanskrit compared to those of Zend (Avestan), Greek, Latin, Lithuanian, Gothic and German. This translation of Bopp's first edition gave English-speaking scholars access to his findings at a time when Germany was far ahead of Britain in this subject. Translated by Edward Backhouse Eastwick (1814-1883), the multi-lingual diplomat and scholar, and edited by Horace Hayman Wilson (1786-1860), Professor of Sanskrit at Oxford, this work stands as a testament both to Bopp's magisterial research and to Eastwick's extraordinary skill in translation.