Talk:Alan Gardiner

Additions from Gardiner's Sign List page

Gardiner was born in Eltham on March 29, 1879. His interest in Egypt started at an early age. He began his education at Charterhouse and was sent to Paris for a year to study under Gaston Maspero, whom he had come to admire after reading a book he had written. Unfortunately, Maspero’s lectures did not live up to Gardiner’s expectations. From Paris, he traveled to England and attended The Queen’s College at Oxford. There he earned a second in Classical Moderations in 1899, and a first in Hebrew and Arabic in 1901. Gardiner was married that year to Hedwig von Rosen, with whom he had two sons and a daughter.

Gardiner could be considered a self made man because he learned what he could about Egypt on his own. He was able to do this with the financial help of his father, Henry John Gardiner. Alan Gardiner never had to earn a living. The only post he held was a Readership at Manchester University from 1912-14. Once Gardiner graduated from Oxford, he spent three months at his father’s office and then left for Berlin for ten years. During this time he helped prepare an Egyptian dictionary, which was sponsored by four German academies, under the direction of Professor Erman. Gardiner specialized in the study of hieratic writing, making trips to Paris and Turin to copy hieratic manuscripts.

The first of his many articles was published in 1904 on an inscription describing the installment of a vizier in Pharaonic Egypt. It was his first large-scale article. He made sure that his texts always gave the largest amount of information at the lowest possible price, so others could afford and enjoy his work. Gardiner published what would become his most famous book, Egyptian Grammar, in 1927. This novel contains translation exercises, a list of hieroglyphic signs, and an English-Egyptian and Egyptian-English dictionary in addition to grammar.

In 1915, Gardiner achieved what he considered his most important discovery. He discovered what he believed to be the ancestor of the Phoenician alphabet. This was considered important because it helped answer questions about the origins of the English language. Working with the hieroglyphs of Egypt, and the pictographs that eventually formed the Phoenician alphabet, sparked an interest in linguistics for Gardiner. This interest led to the writing of both Egyptian Grammar, and The Theory of Speech and Language. The latter did not receive such high praise as its predecessor, to the dismay of Gardiner. Writtem by 84.144.255.165 at Gardiner's Sign List .. (wikis added)-Mmcannis 13:23, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Proposed Merge

Do not merge. One piece of the man's work is not the same as the man. If it is this large, keep it separate. KV(Talk) 03:48, 21 April 2007 (UTC)