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Sidney Herbert Ray (28 May 1858 – 1 January 1939) was a British
SOAS Special Collections
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In 1892, he read an important paper, ''The Languages of British New Guinea'', to the Ninth International Congress of Orientalists. In that paper, he established the distinction between the Austronesian and
SOAS Archives
comparative
The degrees of comparison of adjectives and adverbs are the various forms taken by adjectives and adverbs when used to compare two entities (comparative degree), three or more entities (superlative degree), or when not comparing entities (positi ...
and descriptive linguist who specialised in Melanesian languages.Papers and field notes relating to his linguistic work are held bSOAS Special Collections
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Biography
In 1892, he read an important paper, ''The Languages of British New Guinea'', to the Ninth International Congress of Orientalists. In that paper, he established the distinction between the Austronesian and Papuan languages
The Papuan languages are the non- Austronesian languages spoken on the western Pacific island of New Guinea, as well as neighbouring islands in Indonesia, Solomon Islands, and East Timor. It is a strictly geographical grouping, and does not imply ...
of New Guinea
New Guinea (; Hiri Motu: ''Niu Gini''; , fossilized , also known as Papua or historically ) is the List of islands by area, world's second-largest island, with an area of . Located in Melanesia in the southwestern Pacific Ocean, the island is ...
. Ray (1892). Although he never held an academic position, and was employed throughout his working life as a school teacher, S. H. Ray was an energetic fieldworker, and participated in a number of expeditions.
His first fieldwork was carried out as part of Haddon's 1898 Torres Straits Expedition along with W. H. R. Rivers, C. G. Seligman and Anthony Wilkin. At the time Ray was a primary school teacher, who had already made a study of two Torres Straits languages on the basis of missionary publications and data supplied by Haddon.
Selected works
* *Archives
The papers of Sidney Herbert Ray (PP MS 3) are held aSOAS Archives
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ray, Sidney Herbert 1858 births 1939 deaths Linguists from the United Kingdom Linguists of Papuan languages Linguists of Austronesian languages