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Linguist   Listen
noun
Linguist  n.  
1.
A master of the use of language; a talker. (Obs.) "I'll dispute with him; He's a rare linguist."
2.
A person skilled in languages. "There too were Gibbon, the greatest historian, and Jones, the greatest linguist, of the age."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Linguist" Quotes from Famous Books



... Professor Heinrich von Schalckenberg, a German by birth, but a cosmopolitan by nature and by virtue of his own restless disposition, which would never permit him to settle down for very long in any one place, however attractive. He was a perfect marvel in the matter of learning, a most accomplished linguist, and an indefatigable delver in the lesser-known fields of science, wherein he was credited with having made discoveries of vast importance and value. If such was the case he was in no hurry to make his discoveries public property, chiefly, perhaps, because—as some of his more ...
— With Airship and Submarine - A Tale of Adventure • Harry Collingwood

... conservative old city on the banks of the Mississippi River. Her father was Randolph Leffingwell, and he died in the early flower of his manhood, while filling with a grace that many remember the post of United States Consul at Nice. As a linguist he was a phenomenon, and his photograph in the tortoise-shell frame proves indubitably, to anyone acquainted with the fashions of 1870, that he was a master of that subtlest of all arts, dress. He had gentle blood ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... vocabulary together, and began talking for myself. As I soon knew more Spanish than any of the crew (who, indeed, knew none at all), and had studied Latin and French, I got the name of a great linguist, and was always sent by the captain and officers for provisions, or to take letters and messages to different parts of the town. I was often sent for something which I could not tell the name of to save my life; but I liked the business, and ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana

... chest he cried with great eagerness, "Nat, my boy—Nat, my boy," looking delighted when we laughed; and to give further example of his powers as a linguist, he next touched my uncle as he had ...
— Nat the Naturalist - A Boy's Adventures in the Eastern Seas • G. Manville Fenn

... is an accomplished linguist, but no exception in this particular to the Imperial family in general. The Queen of Greece, a niece of the Emperor of Russia, is said to be very prompt to learn a new language whenever it comes in her way, and when she was selected for that royal position she conquered the greek ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox

... English. We do not know what the other two may be, but if she speaks the four languages here named as fluently and with as little foreign accent as she does our own, she may fairly claim to be an accomplished linguist. All educated Roumanians speak French, and most of them German, besides their own tongue; indeed French is almost the universal language of the middle classes, whilst those who have been educated here, especially the younger men, naturally speak ...
— Roumania Past and Present • James Samuelson

... was the boy who at the immature, we might almost say the tender, age of thirteen entered Harvard College. Though two years after me in college standing, I remember the boyish reputation which he brought with him, especially that of a wonderful linguist, and the impression which his striking personal beauty produced upon us as he took his seat in the college chapel. But it was not until long after this period that I became intimately acquainted with him, and I must again have recourse to the classmates and friends who have favored ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... had managed to make myself understood to some German prisoners, I was looked upon as a great linguist, and vulgarly credited with a knowledge of all the European languages. So I was sent, together with the Quartermaster-Sergeant and the Sergeant-Major, on billeting expeditions. Arranging for quarters at the farm, I made great friends with the farmer. He was a tall, ...
— Adventures of a Despatch Rider • W. H. L. Watson

... laugh at you for the idea, but perhaps you would be angry. What was the topic to be? Chemistry? or astronomy? or mechanics? or conchology? or entomology? or what other ology? I know nothing at all about any of these. I am not scientific; I am not a linguist. You think me far more learned than I am. If I told you all my ignorance, I am afraid you would be shocked; however, as I wish still to retain a little corner in your good opinion, I will hold my tongue.—Believe me, ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter

... and "astringent," and are used especially in diarrhoea. In certain throat affections the Hindoos employ the burning leaves for inhalation. They also use the gum made by evaporating the juice of the ripe fruit, as a confection and an antiscorbutic. Dr. Linguist recommends the bark as a local astringent in uterine, intestinal and pulmonary hemorrhage ...
— The Medicinal Plants of the Philippines • T. H. Pardo de Tavera

... was the younger, I think, of his fair hostesses at Seville, whom he there described himself as making earnest love to, with the help of a dictionary. "For some time," he said, "I went on prosperously both as a linguist and a lover,[123] till at length, the lady took a fancy to a ring which I wore, and set her heart on my giving it to her, as a pledge of my sincerity. This, however, could not be;—anything but the ring, I declared, ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. I. (of VI.) - With his Letters and Journals. • Thomas Moore

... more knowledge of the Scriptures. The language had changed much since Wycliffe's translation of the Bible, and, besides, this was accessible only in manuscript. William Tyndale, a clergyman and an excellent linguist, who had been educated at both Oxford and Cambridge, conceived the idea of giving the English people the Bible in their own tongue. As he found that he could not translate and print the Bible with safety in England, ...
— Halleck's New English Literature • Reuben P. Halleck

... France, first at Calcutta, and among the earliest to swing at anchor off Canton. When Elias Hasket Derby decided to invade this rich East India commerce, he sent his eldest son, Elias Hasket, Jr., to England and the Continent after a course at Harvard. The young man became a linguist and made a thorough study of English and French methods of trade. Having laid this foundation for the venture, the son was now sent to India, where he lived for three years in the interests of his house, building up a trade ...
— The Old Merchant Marine - A Chronicle of American Ships and Sailors, Volume 36 in - the Chronicles Of America Series • Ralph D. Paine

... progressive thought of the day. He is an enthusiastic admirer of Marconi and the marvels of wireless telegraphy; he is an advocate of telephonic service, electric motors, electric lights, and of phonographs and typewriters for the Vatican service. He is a great linguist, speaking English, French, and German as well as Spanish, which is his native tongue, and Italian, which has become second nature. He is a good Greek scholar and a profound Latin scholar, and he speaks the ancient Latin ...
— Italy, the Magic Land • Lilian Whiting

... in 1573, and entered the Jesuit order in 1588. Coming to the Philippines in 1596, he spent thirty-two years in the Visayan missions; he died at Alangatang, in Leyte, December 3, 1628. He was noted as a linguist, and composed various works, religious or poetical, in the Visayan tongue; one of these was a translation of Bellarmino's Doctrina Christiana ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume XI, 1599-1602 • Various

... the beneficent, iron rule of Carl Czerny. But he never looked his age. Seemingly seventy, a very vital threescore-and-ten, by the way, he was as light on his feet as were his fingers on the keyboard. A linguist, speaking without a trace of foreign accent three or four tongues, he was equally fluent in all. Once launched in an argument there was no stopping him. Nor was he an agreeable opponent. Torrents and cataracts of words ...
— Old Fogy - His Musical Opinions and Grotesques • James Huneker

... granddaughter of a high admiral of France—was fond of calling him. For albeit John Paul Jones was of Scotch peasant ancestry, his associates were people of the highest intellect and rank. In appearance he was handsome; in manner prepossessing; and in speech he was a linguist, having at easy command the English, French, and Spanish languages. His surname was Paul. The name Jones was inherited with a ...
— How the Flag Became Old Glory • Emma Look Scott

... trouble she would not take for others; that she did not get on well with her husband, who drank, and was altogether bad and vile; that she had a great sorrow—an only child, an idiot, to whom she was devoted, and who would some day be the Duke of Towers; that she was highly accomplished, a great linguist, a great musician, and about the most popular woman ...
— Peter Ibbetson • George du Marier et al

... one result, and to us the most important, was that the new attachment led to the composition of one of the worst biographies in the language, out of materials which might have served for a masterpiece. Bowring was a great linguist, and an energetic man of business. He wrote hymns, and one of them, 'In the cross of Christ I glory,' is said to have 'universal fame.' A Benthamite capable of so singular an eccentricity judiciously agreed to avoid discussions upon religious topics with his master. ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume I. • Leslie Stephen

... knew Mpolo (Paul du Chaillu), and often spoke to me of his prowess as a chasseur and his knowledge of their tongue. But reputation as a linguist is easily made in these regions by speaking a few common sentences. The gorilla-hunter evidently had only a colloquial acquaintance with the half-dozen various idioms of the Mpongwe and Mpangwe (Fan) Bakele, Shekyani, and Cape Lopez people. Yet, despite verbal ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton

... Signor Past. Vosignoria siete si famoso par la vostra conoscenza, e vostra interessa colla le direttore da— Dang. Egad, I think the interpreter is the hardest to be understood of the two! Sneer. Why, I thought, Dangle, you had been an admirable linguist! Dang. So I am, if they would not talk so damned fast. Sneer. Well, I'll explain that—the less time we lose in bearing them the better—for that, I suppose, is what they are brought here for. [Speaks to SIGNOR PASTICCIO—they sing trios, &c., DANGLE beating out ...
— Scarborough and the Critic • Sheridan

... Glastonbury, Conn., was one of five sisters of a somewhat notable family, the father and mother both having strong traits of character and marked individuality. The mother, Hannah Hickok, was a fine linguist and mathematician. She once made an almanac for her own convenience, almanacs being rather scarce in those days. She could tell the time of night whenever she happened to awake by the position of the ...
— The Woman's Bible. • Elizabeth Cady Stanton

... accomplished linguist scholar, fill a want which has long been felt. Most of the works previously published are too diffuse and elaborate for the purposes of schools, or too contracted to give any thing more than a skeleton of ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 2 August 1848 • Various

... industrious, and accomplished man the world has ever seen, his own nephew, in fact, thinks of marriage, and that his conditions are this and that; he tells his nephew that the most beautiful and amiable creature in Germany, a brilliant musician, a fluent linguist, a devoted daughter, and a person of simple housewifely tastes, lives next door to him, the uncle. Except for the housewifely tastes, it sounds, and in fact is, rather like a courtship in the Arabian Nights so far. The prince hears of the princess, and without having seen her sets ...
— Home Life in Germany • Mrs. Alfred Sidgwick

... you know him? If you had seen his luggage coming on board you would have guessed—cases of all sorts, mostly empty, except a few containing instruments and bottles. He is a great naturalist,—and, I may add, linguist, for I don't know how many languages he speaks. Not equal to our own Audubon, I guess, but a man of wonderful talent, notwithstanding. But, to confess the truth, I am not very well versed in the ...
— In the Wilds of Florida - A Tale of Warfare and Hunting • W.H.G. Kingston

... missionaries in that part of the world was an apostate Polish Jew named Rev. Isidore Lowenthal, a remarkable linguist and a man of profound learning. He translated the Bible and several other religious books into Pashto, the language of the Afghans, and was convinced that he shared with them the same ancestry. A story that is invariably related ...
— Modern India • William Eleroy Curtis

... "Light on the Path"; but whether this effort of mine will really be any interpretation I cannot say. To a deaf and dumb man, a truth is made no more intelligible if, in order to make it so, some misguided linguist translates the words in which it is couched into every living or dead language, and shouts these different phrases in his ear. But for those who are not deaf and dumb one language is generally easier than the rest; and it is to such ...
— Light On The Path and Through the Gates of Gold • Mabel Collins

... is a better linguist than the Englishman,—he is quicker, that is, to pick up a modern language and likely to speak it with a better accent. "Never trust an Englishman who speaks French without an English accent," said Prince ...
— The Twentieth Century American - Being a Comparative Study of the Peoples of the Two Great - Anglo-Saxon Nations • H. Perry Robinson

... the Haughty Hermitage to make it habitable; found for them a coachman who had a little French and, when told what they desired to buy, would take them to the proper shops; provided them with a butler to the same extent a linguist, through whom Estelle, who in Paris had ambitiously studied a manual of conversation, could give her orders, they not unnaturally became less generous ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall

... my friend Mr. A. S. Gatchet, of Washington, D. C., an excellent linguist, the Tanos and the inhabitants of Isleta, the most southerly pueblo on the Rio Grande still occupied, speak the same language.[139] The same is asserted here, as a known fact, to be the case with the Taos and the Picuries in the north, and the Isletas at the south. If this be true, then the ...
— Historical Introduction to Studies Among the Sedentary Indians of New Mexico; Report on the Ruins of the Pueblo of Pecos • Adolphus Bandelier

... years' experience as a journalist, first-rate linguist, deeply versed in geography, Central European politics, etc., will give five hundred pounds to any mental specialist, registered or unregistered, who will cure him of an irresistible temptation on all occasions, with or without ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, July 14th, 1920 • Various

... outlie either Jovius or Surius, or both together. He names me, and comes to me; I whisper, God! How have I sinn'd, that thy wrath's furious rod, This fellow, chooseth me? He saith, Sir, I love your judgment; whom do you prefer For the best linguist? and I sillily Said, that I thought Calepine's Dictionary. Nay, but of men? Most sweet Sir! Beza, then Some Jesuits, and two reverend men Of our two academies, I nam'd. Here He stopt me, and said; Nay, your apostles were Good pretty linguists; so Panurgus was, Yet a poor gentleman; ...
— English Satires • Various

... that the gift of tongues was merely the imparted faculty of speaking foreign languages—it could not be that the highest gift of God to His Church merely made them rivals of the linguist; it would rather seem that the Spirit of God, mingling with the soul of man, supernaturally elevated its aspirations and glorified its conceptions, so that an entranced state of ecstasy was produced, and feelings called into ...
— Sermons Preached at Brighton - Third Series • Frederick W. Robertson

... this was the critical time to give his son "the English stamp," in "whatever it is good for," he added. But as a matter of fact the young Florentine had little affinity with English ways. He was the child of poets; a linguist from his infancy, an omnivorous reader, and with marked talent for art, distinguishing himself later in both painting and sculpture, but he had little ...
— The Brownings - Their Life and Art • Lilian Whiting

... seemed to be every prospect of their perishing from exposure and famine. With great difficulty the officer in charge managed to find some rude shelter and insufficient food for immediate succour, and then, making his way to the nearest town, he applied to the authorities, and being a linguist who included something of the language in which Don Quixote was written amongst his acquisitions, he obtained clothes, food, and a sum of money for present necessities, with the promise of a vessel to ...
— For Fortune and Glory - A Story of the Soudan War • Lewis Hough

... Comte de LUSI, statesman, author and linguist; resident Minister of the King of Prussia in London, St. Petersburg, Greece, etc.; made one of the earliest ascents of ...
— Noteworthy Families (Modern Science) • Francis Galton and Edgar Schuster

... poor Jews, mostly of German and Polish descent, now occupying this quarter. The Portuguese Jews were highly cultured, well-to-do, orderly, and clean people; one of their most brilliant minds was Menasseh-ben-Israel, Rabbi at the Synagogue situated on a canal just behind Rembrandt's house, a great linguist, the first Hebraic printer in the Netherlands, the teacher of the celebrated philosopher Spinoza, a sympathetic and admirable figure, whom we see until the close of his life ...
— Rembrandt's Amsterdam • Frits Lugt

... son was such a disappointment to them; they wanted him to be a linguist, and spent no end of money on having him taught to speak—oh, dozens of languages!—and then he became a Trappist monk. And the youngest, who was intended for the American marriage market, has developed political tendencies, and writes pamphlets about the housing of the ...
— Reginald • Saki

... simply don't exist in your part of the world," the aviator murmured, as he snapped the photograph case. "She's a linguist and musician and all that. With her, every-day living is a fine art. Life, as she says, is what one makes it. In itself, it's nothing. Where you came from it's ...
— One of Ours • Willa Cather

... of his hands, along with his words, explained his meaning, and Two Arrows pulled in his last fish with an "Ugh! good," for answer. He was doing one thing more rapidly than anybody had an idea of. He was a born "linguist," as many Indians are, and he was gathering words of English at a great rate. He was not sure he could yet utter correctly quite a number that he fully understood on hearing them, and his pride forbade him to make blunders. His trouble was with his tongue and not with his ears, as ...
— Two Arrows - A Story of Red and White • William O. Stoddard

... days here, in which we heeled our ships, and got wood and water on board, our boat returned with limes and tobacco; but our linguist, who had been sent ashore to procure refreshments, did not make his appearance. Soon after there came a boat from that part of the island where the governor resides, on board of which was the deputy-governor, a negro, who brought limes, tobacco, oranges, fowls, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume X • Robert Kerr

... one cause they tell more lies, In figures and nativities, Than th' old Chaldean conjurers In so many hundred thousand years Beside their nonsense in translating, 915 For want of accidence and Latin, Like Idus, and Calendae, Englisht The quarter-days by skilful linguist; And yet with canting, sleight and, cheat, 'Twill serve their turn to do the feat; 920 Make fools believe in their foreseeing Of things before they are in being To swallow gudgeons ere th' are catch'd; And count their chickens ere th' are hatch'd Make them the constellations ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler

... cockney lads, more of a patriot than a linguist, looked at this for a moment and then lampblacked a big sign of his own, which he raised on a ...
— More Toasts • Marion Dix Mosher

... knows at least a hundred words of our noble tongue. He says, "What do you want?" "Good morning, gentlemen"; "What can I do for you?" "Do you want dinner?" "No, there is no ice till 6 o'clock." He puts the Americans in mind of better days. Behind this linguist is a little woman, whose age might be twenty or sixty, for her face is so unutterably sad and immovable in expression that there is not a line in it that tells you anything but that there is to this little woman a bitterly sad, ...
— The Story of the Philippines and Our New Possessions, • Murat Halstead

... telegrams at twenty-minute intervals all through the morning, and in the latest one he began to swear. The Prince is a natural linguist and can swear in fifteen different languages. I must be off to Brighton at once. I will return late at night. I have left one of my young men, who will take good care of you, you know. Good-by, ...
— The King's Men - A Tale of To-morrow • Robert Grant, John Boyle O'Reilly, J. S. Dale, and John T.

... language, and of beautiful simplicity—its literature perhaps the first in the world. The Italians!—wonderful men have sprung up in Italy. Italy is not merely famous for painters, poets, musicians, singers, and linguists—the greatest linguist the world ever saw, the late Cardinal Mezzofanti, was an Italian; but it is celebrated for men—men emphatically speaking: Columbus was an Italian, Alexander Farnese was an Italian, so was the mightiest of the mighty, ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow

... servant of Captain Jones; but then they all are. Valet, cook, porter, boots, chambermaid, ostler, carpenter, upholsterer, mechanic, inventor, needlewoman, coal-heaver, diplomat, barber, linguist (home-made), clerk, universal provider, complete pantechnicon and infallible bodyguard, he is also a soldier, if a very old soldier, and a man of the most human kind. Jones came across him in the earlier ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, January 3, 1917 • Various

... the same time a linguist, a musician, an antiquary, a profound student of philology, and skilled withal in the graphic arts, it would seem inevitable that he should have more than a local reputation; but when, in 1844, a thin volume entitled 'Poems of Rural Life in the Dorset Dialect' appeared in London, few bookshop frequenters ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner

... Victor Carrington, the surgeon. His accomplishments were of so varied a nature as to make him invaluable in a large party, and he was always ready to devote himself to the amusement of others. Sir Oswald was astonished at the versatility of his nephew's friend. As a linguist, an artist, a musician, Victor alike shone pre-eminent; but in music he was triumphant. Professing only to be an amateur, he exhibited a scientific knowledge, a mechanical proficiency, as rare as they ...
— Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon

... he presented himself, deprived him of his habit, but after seeing that he did so unjustly, returned it to him; but Father Herrera was much broken because of so many troubles. He was the best Tagal linguist known. ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXIV, 1630-34 • Various

... place," the admiral said warmly, for he had now been promoted to that rank. "If you will bring me your formal application for the post of vice-consul at Alexandria, I will myself take it to the proper quarter. Put your qualification as a resident merchant and as a linguist as strongly as you like. I will urge your naval record, and myself testify to your abilities as a linguist and to the services ...
— At Aboukir and Acre - A Story of Napoleon's Invasion of Egypt • George Alfred Henty

... musical, had extensively cultivated her talents in this respect, and was an accomplished linguist. Like her mother, Queen Victoria, she was unusually strong-minded, and was always believed to rule over her amiable and gentle husband. Her interest in the English community was great, another reason for the dislike with which the Germans regarded her. To her the community ...
— William of Germany • Stanley Shaw

... Earl of Leicester's physician before 1586, and the Queen's chief physician from that date. An accomplished linguist, with friends in all parts of Europe, he acted in 1590, at the request of the Earl of Essex, as interpreter to Antonio Perez, a victim of Philip II's persecution, whom Essex and his associates brought to England in order to stimulate the hostility of the English public to Spain. ...
— A Life of William Shakespeare - with portraits and facsimiles • Sidney Lee

... no easier or quicker way of doing it. The acquiring of another foreign language awoke me to the fact that with a little effort I could secure an added accomplishment as fine and as valuable as music; so I determined to make myself as much of a linguist as possible. I bought a Spanish newspaper every day in order to freshen my memory of that language, and, for French, devised what was, so far as I knew, an original system of study. I compiled a list which I termed "Three hundred necessary words." These I thoroughly ...
— The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man • James Weldon Johnson

... well to mention that Frau von Lilly accompanied us on our trip to Sordavala, Valamo, and Imatra, acting as guide, cicerone, and friend. Being an excellent linguist, and well versed in the manners and customs of her country, her aid was invaluable; indeed, it is to her we owe much of the success of our summer jaunt to Finland. At Sordavala, however, we were joined for a few days by a young Finlander, whose family name is a household ...
— Through Finland in Carts • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie

... to philology, Borrow tells us in the Appendix, that he wishes 'Lavengro' and this book to be judged. Fortunately for himself, his fame rests upon surer foundations. A great but careless linguist, Borrow was assuredly no philologist. 'Hair-erecting' (haarstraubend) is the fitting epithet which an Oriental scholar, Professor Richard Pischel, of Berlin, finds to describe Borrow's etymologies; while ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow

... his breath, Salvatore had begun to talk. He was a strong, ambidextrous talker, whom it was hard to interrupt; and it was not for some moments that Mr. Brewster succeeded in getting a word in. When he did, he spoke to the point. Though not a linguist, he had been able to follow the discourse closely enough to realise that the waiter was dissatisfied with conditions in his hotel; and Mr. Brewster, as has been indicated, had a short way with people ...
— Indiscretions of Archie • P. G. Wodehouse

... the language. He is mentioned by Gookin in the History of the Christian Indians as follows: "In this expedition [July, 1675] one of our principal soldiers of the praying Indians was slain, a valiant and stout man named Job Nesutan; he was a very good linguist in the English tongue, and was Mr. Eliot's assistant and interpreter in his translations of the Bible, and other books of the Indian language."—Bibliography of the Algonquian Language; ...
— John Eliot's First Indian Teacher and Interpreter Cockenoe-de-Long Island and The Story of His Career from the Early Records • William Wallace Tooker

... spontaneous combustion. No sooner had it begun, however, than Joseph J. Ettor, an I.W.W. organizer, hastened to take charge, and succeeded so well that within a few weeks he claimed 7000 members in his union. Ettor proved a crafty, resourceful general, quick in action, magnetic in personality, a linguist who could command his polyglot mob. He was also a successful press agent who exploited fully the unpalatable drinking water provided by the companies, the inadequate sewerage, the unpaved streets, and the practical destitution ...
— The Armies of Labor - Volume 40 in The Chronicles Of America Series • Samuel P. Orth

... was there, but in Aran on these visits he always tried to add to the fun, and to his personal prestige with conjuring tricks, fiddling, piping, taking photographs, etc. Some of the Islanders were much attached to him. I suppose that their main impression was that he was a linguist who had committed a crime somewhere and ...
— John M. Synge: A Few Personal Recollections, with Biographical Notes • John Masefield

... ignorance in its attempts to parley-voo, this stands unequalled. We have seen hic jacet turned into his jacket, in an obituary; that was a trifle; but CART-BALANCE overcomes our gravity!' So it does ours. The anecdote, to adopt the reading of a kindred accomplished linguist whom we wot of, is a 'capital jesus-de-sprit!' . . . THE beginning of 'L.'s 'Stanzas' is by no means unpromising; but what a ...
— Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, March 1844 - Volume 23, Number 3 • Various

... and Theresa had returned to us. Her studies were completed, and she seemed to our fond hearts more than we ever hoped for, or dared to anticipate. She had certainly improved to the utmost the period of her absence; she was an admirable linguist, a good musician, and her talent for painting was pronounced by connoisseurs to be extraordinary. She possessed in a rare degree perfect consciousness of her powers, without a tinge of vanity; and she ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 5. May 1848 • Various

... in Liverpool and worked in a night school; he was a good linguist, which he would never have been had he had the misfortune to be educated in any of ...
— Margot Asquith, An Autobiography: Volumes I & II • Margot Asquith

... the head of such a school wants a matron," Mrs. Carroll said, "she naturally looks for a lady and a linguist, ...
— Saturday's Child • Kathleen Norris

... by the celebrated chronicle of the monk Benedict, of the convent of St. Andrea on Mount Soracte, written in such barbarous Latin, and with such strange grammatical forms, that it requires a profoundly skilled linguist to decipher it.* (* See G. ...
— The Antiquity of Man • Charles Lyell

... our English enrol it as the most precious of the powerful verbs. An envoy visits the principal Seats of Learning in Europe. He is of a gravity to match that of his unexampled and all but stupefying mission. A fluent linguist, yet an Englishman, the slight American accent contracted during a lengthened residence in the United States is no bar to the patriotism urging him to pay his visit of exposition and invitation from the Japanese Court to the distinguished Doctor of Divinity Dr. Bouthoin. The renown of Dr. Bouthoin ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... some trouble about foreign vessels selling saltpeter illegally and—he knew some English—we had quite a friendly little consultation. Yet it hadn't prepared me for his coming off to the Nautilus at Shanghai with a linguist and an air of the greatest mystery. His manner was beautiful, of course, absolutely tranquil and that made what they said, what he hoped, seem even ...
— Java Head • Joseph Hergesheimer

... independently, published a most instructive and philosophical pamphlet (an excellent notice of which is to be found in the 'Reader', for February 27th of this year) supporting similar views with all the weight of his special knowledge and established authority as a linguist. Professor Haeckel, to whom Schleicher addresses himself, previously took occasion, in his splendid monograph on the 'Radiolaria',* to express his high appreciation of, and general concordance with, Mr. Darwin's views. ([Footnote] *'Die Radiolarien: ...
— Lectures and Essays • T.H. Huxley

... by the General Court to come to Boston and embark in a ship that was about to set sail for England. But he escaped into the forest, and made his way through the snow to the wigwam of Massasoit. He was a rare linguist, and had learned to talk fluently in the language of the Indians, and now he passed the winter in trying to instill into their ferocious hearts something of the gentleness of Christianity. In the spring he was privately notified ...
— The Beginnings of New England - Or the Puritan Theocracy in its Relations to Civil and Religious Liberty • John Fiske

... half-superstitious imaginings, and half-developed impulses, ideas and mental powers; practically, an assistant to the worn mother in her household duties, a haunter of the beautiful places in the city of her adoption, an occasional mingler in the scant festivities of artists, a good linguist, knowing English thoroughly and speaking French and German with fluent accuracy. Watch her, with me, as she walks one spring day along the narrow Via Robbia, down which a slip of sunlight glints scantily on her young head, and, emerging into ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, August, 1878 • Various

... Six audiences a week and often two a day besides his labors as antiquarian, historian, linguist, geographer, ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine

... people not a little thought of, and even caressed, in society, and for whom I have ever felt a very humble estimate—the men who play all manner of games, and the men who speak several languages. I begin with the latter, and declare that, after a somewhat varied experience of life, I never met a linguist that was above a third-rate man; and I go farther, and aver, that I never chanced upon a really able man who had ...
— Cornelius O'Dowd Upon Men And Women And Other Things In General - Originally Published In Blackwood's Magazine - 1864 • Charles Lever

... echo-bird, with a voice compounded of all sweet sounds, as the blossom of the Chinese olive is compounded of all sweet scents — is a pure lyrist; its throat is a lyre — Aeolian, capricious, many-stringed; as its name suggests, it is a polyglot mime, a bird linguist, a feathered Mezzofanti singing all the bird languages; yet over and above all this, with a something of its own that cannot be described." The mocking-bird speaks for himself in Thompson's 'To an English Nightingale': "What do ...
— Select Poems of Sidney Lanier • Sidney Lanier

... upon a site for the settlement being chosen, the necessary operations were commenced, and by the end of May in the following year, the preliminary arrangements having been completed, the Alligator left, and Captain John Macarthur, R.M., with a subaltern, assistant-surgeon, storekeeper, and a linguist, together with a detachment of forty marines, remained in charge of the new settlement. The Britomart remained behind for several years as a tender to this naval station, or military post—for either term is equally applicable, and was afterwards succeeded in her charge by H.M.S. Royalist. ...
— Narrative Of The Voyage Of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Commanded By The Late Captain Owen Stanley, R.N., F.R.S. Etc. During The Years 1846-1850. Including Discoveries And Surveys In New Guinea, The Louisiade • John MacGillivray

... descendants are the founder of a famous young ladies' school at Lenox; an author of "Spanish Conquest of America," and five other considerable works; clerk of supreme court of Massachusetts; a Boston lawyer, graduate of Harvard; an eminent linguist and graduate of Harvard; music teacher in New York City, educated in Germany; St. Louis lawyer, graduate of Harvard college and law school, who studied in Germany; major in Civil war, wounded at Antietam; hospital nurse in Civil war; graduate of Yale; graduate of Cambridge, Eng., and author ...
— Jukes-Edwards - A Study in Education and Heredity • A. E. Winship

... He had been in Norway, and was well acquainted with the people and language, having been for many previous years of his life employed in the lobster fisheries. He proved a most willing, honest, good-tempered servant, and a most useful linguist. ...
— A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden - 2nd edition • W. A. Ross

... the recipient, and she was prepared to correspond with anyone but moral young ladies or stiff old women. She wrote also a kind of poetry, generally in Italian, and short romances, generally in French. She read much of a desultory sort of literature, and as a modern linguist had really made great proficiency. Such was the lady who had now come to wound the hearts ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope

... had cursed his own slowness as a linguist, when Peter had taken the part of answering the German officer. He was afraid of Peter's answers, but that fear was passing now. In fact, Peter had answered surprisingly well, and his companion was breathing easily, as a man should in a state ...
— Red Fleece • Will Levington Comfort

... passengers is a Persian dealer in precious stones. He is a well-educated individual, quite a linguist, and a polished gentleman withal. He is taking diamonds and turquoises that he has collected in ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens

... extortion which had been practised under colour of enforcing forgotten laws, and by bringing his father's financial ministers, Empson and Dudley, to trial on a charge of treason. His sympathies were known to be heartily with the New Learning; he was a clever linguist, he had a taste that never left him for theological study, he was a fair scholar. Even as a boy of nine he had roused by his wit and attainments the wonder of Erasmus, and now that he mounted the ...
— History of the English People, Volume III (of 8) - The Parliament, 1399-1461; The Monarchy 1461-1540 • John Richard Green

... and it annoyed him keenly, for he was, like most society-men, very punctilious regarding the manners of the particular woman who belonged to him. That she was, in fact, an elegant conversationalist, quick and brilliant at repartee, a fine linguist and an intelligent thinker for a woman, ...
— Not Pretty, But Precious • John Hay, et al.

... first made James Gilmour's acquaintance in the winter session of 1864-5 at Glasgow University. He came to college with the reputation of being a good linguist. This reputation was soon confirmed by distinction in his classes, especially in Latin and Greek. Though his advantages had been superior to most of us, and his mental calibre was of a high order, he was always humble, utterly devoid of pride or vanity. No ...
— James Gilmour of Mongolia - His diaries, letters, and reports • James Gilmour

... do believe that nine tongues all at work could not have matched her. But peace be with her! she is silent at last, and cannot hear me now. I thought I myself possessed an extensive knowledge of the languages, but, alas I was nothing; as a linguist she was without a rival. However, I pass that over, and return to the subject of my toast. Now, my dear Martha, since heaven ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton

... those frequent changes which prove so detrimental to every interest concerned. The consuls should either be acquainted with the Chinese language, a work for a lifetime, or have an American interpreter. The practice of having a Chinese linguist is most damaging—the native linguist being invariably a lying knave, who becomes consul de facto, whom no native can approach without a bribe, which it is supposed goes in part to the consul. As the points where consuls are needed are numerous, some of them being where ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 5, November, 1863 • Various

... familiar thing we Yankees can meet with in Holland is a harvest song which is quite popular there, though no linguist could translate it. Even then we must shut our eyes and listen only to the tune, which ...
— Hans Brinker - or The Silver Skates • Mary Mapes Dodge

... impatient, dispatched from Lima Friar Melchior and one John Betanzos, who had married the daughter of the unfortunate Inca Atahualpa and pretended to be very learned in his wife's language. Montesinos says he was a "great linguist." They started off quite confidently for Uiticos, taking with them several pieces of velvet and damask, and two cups of gilded silver as presents. Anxious to secure the honor of being the first to ...
— Inca Land - Explorations in the Highlands of Peru • Hiram Bingham

... truth, Circe, although I listened with what attention I could, and although the actual language was perfectly clear to me—you know I am rather an accomplished linguist—I formed no idea of what he said. I could not find the starting-point of ...
— Hypolympia - Or, The Gods in the Island, an Ironic Fantasy • Edmund Gosse

... Europe. A smart, active man for a L. M. T. Dig. Night work only. Headquarters London and Cairo. A linguist preferred. ...
— With The Night Mail - A Story of 2000 A.D. (Together with extracts from the - comtemporary magazine in which it appeared) • Rudyard Kipling

... original language; boasts of his learning with a haughty mien and scornful look of self-importance, and thinks this school-boy exercise of memory, this mechanism of the mind, is to determine the line between genius and stupidity; and has never taken into consideration that the mere linguist, destitute of native powers, with his absurd parade of scholastic knowledge, is a solitary barren plant, when opposed to the higher occupations of the mind, to the flights of fancy, the daring combinations of genius, and the sublime pictures of imagination. Dick ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle

... countenance. After a hurried conference with Delgado, he came forward and addressed me in Arabic, of which I could not understand a word. Luckily, however, Sam the cook, who, as I think I said, was a great linguist, had a fair acquaintance with this tongue, acquired, it appears, while at the Zanzibar hotel; so, not trusting Delgado, I ...
— Allan and the Holy Flower • H. Rider Haggard

... to the same causes as all others, but we will consider it in its Vedic phase, as it may be gathered from tradition, and from the discoveries of comparative philology, and we have a sure guide in this research in the great linguist Kuhn, whose remarks have been enlarged and illustrated ...
— Myth and Science - An Essay • Tito Vignoli

... he answered, "unless I were void of ordinary intelligence, to live as long as I have, and not become a general linguist. Of course I had to learn the languages of the countries I visited, and as I was always a student, it delighted me to do so. In fact, I not only studied, but I wrote. When the Alexandrian library was destroyed, fourteen of my books were burned. When I was ...
— The Vizier of the Two-Horned Alexander • Frank R. Stockton

... on Writers for bread, in which he decyphers these notable passages, one in Latin, fatui non fam, instead of fami non fam; Johnson having in his mind what Thuanus says of the learned German antiquary and linguist, Xylander, who, he tells us, lived in such poverty, that he was supposed fami non fam scribere; and another in French, Degente de fate [fatu] et affam a'argent, instead of Dgout de fame, (an old word for renomme) ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell

... surprised, on looking into the dictionaries, to discover that it was not there. I have heard it used from childhood,—applied to anything tied around the head in kerchief fashion. The word is in use in old legends, and possibly comes from the French mouchoir, "handkerchief;" but some better linguist than myself must say whether this suggestion is correct. To show, how the word is used, I can refer my questioner to the little story of "Gertrude's Bird," or the woodpecker, that is said to "fly about with a red mutch on her head." The legend is in Dasent's ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, September 1878, No. 11 • Various

... through pioneer study of the Siouan Indians that the popular fallacy concerning the aboriginal "Great Spirit" gained currency; and it was partly through the work of Dorsey among the cegiha and Dakota tribes, first as a missionary and afterward as a linguist, that the early error was corrected. Among these tribes the creation and control of the world and the things thereof are ascribed to "wa-kan-da" (the term varying somewhat from tribe to tribe), ...
— The Siouan Indians • W. J. McGee

... fully to understand those very things with which he is most familiar. A man must study other languages, if he would hope fully to understand his own. A man must study more than languages merely if he would become a perfect linguist. The only way to understand arithmetic thoroughly is to study algebra. A parent who has only one child, and who gives his entire and exclusive attention to the study of that child, in order that he may, by a thorough understanding of its nature and ...
— In the School-Room - Chapters in the Philosophy of Education • John S. Hart

... Richard's mind could not be diverted from the Huntercombe estate and his hatred of Sir Charles and Lady Bassett, which had been the great misfortune of her life and of his own, but nothing would ever eradicate it. Richard had great abilities; was a linguist, a wonderful accountant; could her dear father find him some profitable employment ...
— A Terrible Temptation - A Story of To-Day • Charles Reade

... abounds with local wit and quaint humour.[45] He had not attained his twenty-second year when he published a poem, entitled "Esther, Queen of Persia,"[46] written amid graver studies; for three years after, Henley, being M.A., published his "Complete Linguist," consisting of grammars of ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli

... an admirable education, was an excellent classicist and linguist, and during a short residence at Dusseldorf showed such talent for painting as to excite much wonder. Before he was twenty he was the friend of Goethe and Herder, who delighted in a genius so rich and symmetrical. Some of Goethe's letters are full of charming expressions ...
— The Great German Composers • George T. Ferris

... Robert Adrain, who taught mathematics, and who at the same time was one of the faculty of Columbia College; and Lorenzo L. da Ponte. The latter was a man of unusual versatility, and was especially distinguished as a linguist. He taught us English literature in such a successful manner that we regarded that study merely as a recreation. Mr. da Ponte was a son of Lorenzo da Ponte, a Venitian of great learning, who after coming to this country rendered such conspicuous services in connection with Dominick ...
— As I Remember - Recollections of American Society during the Nineteenth Century • Marian Gouverneur

... sorted out another sheet. "Kenneth Ballalou, born in Louisiana, educated in Chicago. Another young man but evidently as capable as the others. He seems to be quite a linguist. So far as we know, he holds ...
— Border, Breed Nor Birth • Dallas McCord Reynolds

... hostess of the moment—she was unable to speak a word of English—received her warm congratulations upon his contemplated union with a certain fair one of St. Andrew (to whom reference has previously been made in these pages). Mr. Waddell, a very fair linguist, replied in suitable but embarrassed terms, and asked for the source of the ...
— All In It K(1) Carries On - A Continuation of the First Hundred Thousand • John Hay Beith (AKA: Ian Hay)

... Mithradates the Sixth, king of Pontus in Asia, who succeeded his father Mithridates V. B.C. 120, when he was about eleven years of age. He was a man of ability, well instructed in the learning of the Greeks, and a great linguist: it is said that he could speak twenty-two languages. He had already got possession of Colchis on the Black Sea, and placed one of his sons on the throne of Cappadocia. He had also strengthened himself by marrying his daughter to Tigranes king of Armenia. Other events ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume II • Aubrey Stewart & George Long

... worth living than those of their cooks, and to whom the task of making money equivalent to education offered more difficulties than to Adams the task of making education equivalent to money. Social position seemed to have value still, while education counted for nothing. A mathematician, linguist, chemist, electrician, engineer, if fortunate might average a value of ten dollars a day in the open market. An administrator, organizer, manager, with mediaeval qualities of energy and will, but no education beyond his special branch, would probably be worth ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams

... am not a man of education. I don't know how to play the piano, and can scarcely manage a free-hand sketch of a cathedral. My Greek is shaky, and I speak French and German with an accent enough to drive a linguist mad. No, no, you take my word for it—this little incident would never have happened had you behaved wisely, and like a ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101. October 10, 1891 • Various



Words linked to "Linguist" :   translator, somebody, Saussure, Harris, someone, Roman Osipovich Jakobson, Ferdinand de Saussure, lexicologist, neurolinguist, soul, phonetician, grammarian, phonologist, J. R. Firth, bilingualist, semiotician, Joseph Greenberg, Roman Jakobson, sociolinguist, Sapir, Grimm, Leonard Bloomfield, person, computational linguist, Noam Chomsky, Jespersen, linguistic scientist, firth, linguistic, John Rupert Firth, Edward Sapir, individual, linguistics, mortal, de Saussure, Zellig Sabbatai Harris, bilingual, lexicographer, Jakob Ludwig Karl Grimm, Zellig Harris, Greenberg, Bloomfield, Otto Jespersen, semanticist, Jakobson, syntactician, polyglot



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