Sir William Jones was an Anglo-Welsh philologist and scholar of ancient India, particularly known for his proposition of the existence of a relationship among Indo-European languages. He, along with Henry Thomas Colebrooke and Nathaniel Halhed, founded the Asiatic Society of Bengal, and started a journal called 'Asiatick Researches'.

His father (also named William Jones) was a mathematician from Anglesey in Wales, noted for devising the use of the symbol pi. The young William Jones was a linguistic prodigy, learning Greek, Latin, Persian, Arabic, Hebrew and the basics of Chinese writing at an early age. By the end of his life he knew thirteen languages thoroughly and another twenty-eight reasonably well, making him a hyperpolyglot.

Of all his discoveries, Jones is known today for making and propagating the observation that classical Greek and Latin seemed to have been derived from Sanskrit. In his Third Anniversary Discourse to the Asiatic Society (1786) he suggested that classical Greek and Latin had a common root and that the two may be further related, in turn, to Gothic and the Celtic languages, as well as to Persian.... More • http://en.wikipedia. ... ologist%29 View • Books • Images • Videos • Search Related • Prodigies • Scientists • Calcutta • Colonialism • Great Britain • India • Industrial Revolution • Linguistics • London • Philologist • 18th Century • People