Talk:Simon Digby (oriental scholar)

A linguist?
The article claims that Simon Digby was a linguist. I couldn't find any hints or merrits that would make him a linguist. Is it just, because he studied linguistics? What has he done for or published on linguistics? Does anyone know? — N-true (talk) 22:41, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

From The Daily Telegraph obituary:

"Simon was an outstanding student with a talent for languages. He learnt Persian, Arabic, Urdu, Hindi and, later on in life, Nepali. His linguistic attainments made him almost a natural in the field of medieval Indian history."

From The Times obituary:

"Connoisseur, collector and linguist..... Already able to read Urdu and Hindi, he now attended classes in Persian and began to publish translations of Persian poems....He became increasingly absorbed in the exact and elegant translation from Asian languages in which he said: “I have a moral purpose, in that translations make available additional data for historical debate, and this may be of greater importance than propagating one’s own views.” With this went an interest in popular literature and folk tales, resulting in 2000 in a book, Wonder-Tales of South Asia, consisting of his translations from Hindi, Nepali, Urdu and Persian."

Jack1956 (talk) 20:42, 8 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Thanks. In other words, besides two dubious newspaper articles of which 1½ claim he has linguistic ambitions, which in popular press often means "he speaks many languages", he has nothing to do with linguistics per se. Thus he's a polyglot and a translator, but certainly not a linguist. — N-true (talk) 21:23, 8 March 2010 (UTC)
 * P.S.: To be more precise: The first use of "linguistic" you gave, is in the meaning of "having to do with languages". "Linguistic attainment" here is a mere synonym of "(foreign) language knowledge". Plus, teaching foreign languages has nothing to do with the job linguists do. Neither does a linguist have to know many languages, nor does knowing many languages make one a linguist. So we shouldn't repeat journalists' mistakes here. — N-true (talk) 21:29, 8 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Fair enough... I will add translator to the article instead. Jack1956 (talk) 18:51, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

Comment moved from article
I just removed the following comment from the article. I haven't looked into its veracity, but editorial comments should not be put into the article proper. Huon (talk) 15:53, 26 January 2014 (UTC)

"Following Digby's obituaries you indicate that he was the grandson of William Digby, however his father's entry states that the man's name was Col T. Digby. The obituary is incorrect. According to "England & Wales, FreeBMD Marriage Index, 1837-1915" on ancestry.com, his name was Thomas Digby who married Alice Isabella Sherard in 1884. He's listed as Lt Col T. E. Digby in the 1910 edition of Burke's Peerage in the article on the Barons Sherard (page 1649, right column)"