Herbert Weir Smyth (August 8, 1857 – July 16, 1937) was an American classical scholar. His comprehensive grammar of

Ancient Greek Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic pe ...

has become a standard reference on the subject in English, comparable to that of William Watson Goodwin, whom he succeeded as Eliott Professor of Greek Literature at

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of highe ...

Life

He was educated at Swarthmore ( A.B. 1876), Harvard (A.B. 1878),

Leipzig Leipzig ( , ; Upper Saxon: ) is the most populous city in the German state of Saxony. Leipzig's population of 605,407 inhabitants (1.1 million in the larger urban zone) as of 2021 places the city as Germany's eighth most populous, as ...

, and

Göttingen Göttingen (, , ; nds, Chöttingen) is a university city in Lower Saxony, central Germany, the capital of the eponymous district. The River Leine runs through it. At the end of 2019, the population was 118,911. General information The ori ...

( Ph.D. 1884). From 1883 to 1885, he was instructor in Greek and

Sanskrit Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had Trans-cultural diffusion ...

Williams College Williams College is a private liberal arts college in Williamstown, Massachusetts. It was established as a men's college in 1793 with funds from the estate of Ephraim Williams, a colonist from the Province of Massachusetts Bay who was kille ...

, and then for two years, he was reader in Greek at

Johns Hopkins Johns Hopkins (May 19, 1795 – December 24, 1873) was an American merchant, investor, and philanthropist. Born on a plantation, he left his home to start a career at the age of 17, and settled in Baltimore, Maryland where he remained for most ...

. From 1887 to 1901, he was professor of Greek at Bryn Mawr. In the latter year, he was called to Harvard as professor of Greek and in 1902, and he was appointed Eliott professor of Greek literature, succeeding Goodwin. From 1899 to 1900, he was professor of the

Greek language Greek ( el, label= Modern Greek, Ελληνικά, Elliniká, ; grc, Ἑλληνική, Hellēnikḗ) is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages, native to Greece, Cyprus, southern Italy ( Calabria and Salento), souther ...

and

literature Literature is any collection of Writing, written work, but it is also used more narrowly for writings specifically considered to be an art form, especially prose fiction, drama, and poetry. In recent centuries, the definition has expanded to ...

at the American Classical School at

Athens Athens ( ; el, Αθήνα, Athína ; grc, Ἀθῆναι, Athênai (pl.) ) is both the capital and largest city of Greece. With a population close to four million, it is also the seventh largest city in the European Union. Athens dominates a ...

. From 1889 to 1904, he was secretary of the

American Philological Association The Society for Classical Studies (SCS), formerly known as the American Philological Association (APA) is a non-profit North American scholarly organization devoted to all aspects of Greek and Roman civilization founded in 1869. It is the preemin ...

and editor of its ''Transactions'' and in 1904 was elected president. He became a fellow of the

American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, a ...

, a member of the

American Philosophical Society The American Philosophical Society (APS), founded in 1743 in Philadelphia, is a scholarly organization that promotes knowledge in the sciences and humanities through research, professional meetings, publications, library resources, and communit ...

and vice-president of the Egypt Exploration Society.

Works

*
The Dialects of North Greece
' (1887) * ''The Sacred Literature of the Jains'' (1894, a translation) *
Sounds and Inflections of Greek Dialects I: The Ionic Dialect
' (Clarendon Press, 1894) *
Greek Melic Poets
' (McMillan, 1900) *
Beginner's Greek Book
' (1906) (with Allen Rogers Benner; American Book Company 1906) *
A Greek Grammar for Schools and Colleges
' (1916) *
Greek Grammar for Colleges
' (American Book Company, 1920) * ''Aeschylean Tragedy'' (the second

Sather Lecture Sather is an object-oriented programming language. It originated circa 1990 at the International Computer Science Institute (ICSI) at the University of California, Berkeley, developed by an international team led by Steve Omohundro. It supports g ...

in 1924) * ''Aeschylus'' (Loeb edition) * "The Greek Language in its Relation to the Psychology of the Ancient Greeks" (read before the Congress of Arts and Sciences at the St. Louis Exposition in 1904) * "Aspects of Greek Conservatism" (in ''Harvard Studies in Classical Philology'', 1906) *
Greek Conceptions of Immortality from Homer to Plato
(in ''Harvard Essays on Classical Subjects'', 1912) He was editor of the Greek Series for Colleges and Schools (20 volumes).

Sources

External links

* *
Herbert Weir Smyth, Greek Grammar
at the Christian Classics Ethereal Library American classical scholars American philologists 1857 births 1937 deaths Swarthmore College alumni Harvard University alumni Williams College faculty Classical scholars of Harvard University University of Göttingen alumni Leipzig University alumni Classical scholars of Bryn Mawr College Classical scholars of Johns Hopkins University Grammarians of Ancient Greek Scholars of ancient Greek literature Linguists from the United States {{US-linguist-stub

Life

Works

Sources

Further reading

External links