Christopher Hanby Baillie Reynolds (29 July 19223 April 2015) was the first British academic to study the

Maldivian language Maldivian, also known by its Endonym and exonym, endonym Dhivehi (, ''Dhivēhī'', ), is an Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan language belonging to the Indo-Iranian languages, Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European languages, Indo-European ...

. He wrote the first ''English-Maldivian dictionary'': this complied with the

Maldive The Maldives, officially the Republic of Maldives, and historically known as the Maldive Islands, is an archipelagic country in South Asia located in the Indian Ocean. The Maldives is southwest of Sri Lanka and India, about from the Asian c ...

Government's 1970's then Roman-

transliteration Transliteration is a type of conversion of a text from one script to another that involves swapping letters (thus '' trans-'' + '' liter-'') in predictable ways, such as Greek → and → the digraph , Cyrillic → , Armenian → or L ...

scheme. The material was available to academics from the 1970s, and finally published in 432 pages with 5000 individual entries in 2003. The dictionary complemented his 1993 150-page ''Maldives ( World Bibliographical Series number 158)'' book. During his career as a Sinhalese lecturer at the

School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) A school is the educational institution (and, in the case of in-person learning, the Educational architecture, building) designed to provide learning environments for the teaching of students, usually under the direction of teachers. Most co ...

in London he taught and extensively researched the

Sinhalese language Sinhala ( ; Sinhala: , , ), sometimes called Sinhalese ( ), is an Indo-Aryan language primarily spoken by the Sinhalese people of Sri Lanka, who make up the largest ethnic group on the island, numbering about 16 million. It is also the first l ...

and its pre-1815 literature: the Sri Lankan government awarded him the Sri Lanka Ranajana medal for this.

Education interrupted by war service

Christopher Hanby Baillie Reynolds was born 29 July 1922 in

St Albans St Albans () is a cathedral city in Hertfordshire, England, east of Hemel Hempstead and west of Hatfield, Hertfordshire, Hatfield, north-west of London, south-west of Welwyn Garden City and south-east of Luton. St Albans was the first major ...

England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...

; his father was the registrar of the

Corporation of the Sons of the Clergy Clergy Support Trust is a charity which provides support to Anglican clergy (serving and retired), ordinands, curates, and their families, in the UK, Ireland, Diocese in Europe and Diocese of Sodor and Man. In 2022, they supported over 2,300 cler ...

. Christopher's school education was at

Winchester College Winchester College is an English Public school (United Kingdom), public school (a long-established fee-charging boarding school for pupils aged 13–18) with some provision for day school, day attendees, in Winchester, Hampshire, England. It wa ...

. His Honour Mods studies including

Modern Languages A modern language is any human language that is currently in use as a native language. The term is used in language education to distinguish between languages which are used for day-to-day communication (such as French and German) and dead clas ...

New College, Oxford New College is a constituent college of the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. Founded in 1379 by Bishop William of Wykeham in conjunction with Winchester College as New College's feeder school, New College was one of the first col ...

were interrupted in 1942 by

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

war service in

Italy Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe, Western Europe. It consists of Italian Peninsula, a peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, with the Alps on its northern land b ...

, taking him after the war (but still in the army) to

Sri Lanka Sri Lanka, officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, also known historically as Ceylon, is an island country in South Asia. It lies in the Indian Ocean, southwest of the Bay of Bengal, separated from the Indian subcontinent, ...

(then Ceylon) where he was fascinated by the Sinhalese language, script and culture. After the war, with a Forlong scholarship, he gained a BA degree in Sinhalese at SOAS.

SOAS career

After graduating at SOAS, he was promptly appointed to a Sinhalese lectureship there. For some of his overseas research leave in Sri Lanka, he studied with Buddhist monks. When in the Maldives, then hardly ever visited by foreigners, he studied the Maldivian language, which is related to Sinhalese. His ''English-Maldivian dictionary; Bilingual edition'' was published by Routledge on 17 April 2003, . His Sinhalese language publications included: * ''Linguistic studies of early Sinhalese'' in the ''Bulletin of the British Association of Orientalists''. * The 377-page ''An anthology of Sinhalese literature up to 1815'', selected by the UNESCO National Commission of Ceylon * ''Sinhalese: An introductory course'', SOAS, 1981, 1995 For over 10 years he was employed to monitor the

BBC The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...

’s Sinhalese programs.

Family

He married Jane Batten in Hampstead Parish Church,

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

in July 1952 and lived in

Westerham Westerham is a town and civil parishes in England, civil parish in the Sevenoaks District of Kent, England. It is located 3.4 miles east of Oxted and 6 miles west of Sevenoaks, adjacent to the Kent border with both Greater London and Surrey. I ...

Kent Kent is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Essex across the Thames Estuary to the north, the Strait of Dover to the south-east, East Sussex to the south-west, Surrey to the west, and Gr ...

from 1957. They sang in the Bach Choir in London from about 1942 and were keen musicians. Many holidays were spent camping in Welcome valley close to the north-coast border of

Devon Devon ( ; historically also known as Devonshire , ) is a ceremonial county in South West England. It is bordered by the Bristol Channel to the north, Somerset and Dorset to the east, the English Channel to the south, and Cornwall to the west ...

and

Cornwall Cornwall (; or ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South West England. It is also one of the Celtic nations and the homeland of the Cornish people. The county is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, ...

. They had four children: Tristram, Ben, Lucy and David. Christopher died on 3 April 2015, aged 92: he and Jane (who died on 1 May 2008) share a grave near the north boundary of

Westerham Church Westerham is a town and civil parishes in England, civil parish in the Sevenoaks District of Kent, England. It is located 3.4 miles east of Oxted and 6 miles west of Sevenoaks, adjacent to the Kent border with both Greater London and Surrey. I ...

churchyard.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Reynolds, Christopher Linguists from England 1922 births 2015 deaths British Army personnel of World War II Alumni of New College, Oxford British expatriates in Italy British expatriates in Sri Lanka