Whitney, William Dwight. A distinguished American philologist. Born in 1827 at Northampton, MA. Studied at Williams College, Williamstown, and at Yale College, giving special attention to Sanskrit. He also studied Sanskrit in Germany from 1850 to 1853, returning in the latter year to America. The first fruits of his studies in Sanskrit was an edition of the Atharva-Veda, in conjunction with Roth (1856). He had previously been made professor of Sanskrit in 1854, and of comparative philology at Yale College. Among his independent works may be mentioned: "Language and the Study of Language" (1867), "Oriental and Linguistic Studies" (1872-74), "Life and Growth of Language" (1875), "Sanskrit Grammar" (a highly important work), "German Grammar." He was editor of the "Century Dictionary of the English Language." He died in 1894.

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