Records Relating to Non-American Languages
odd: label: Local Numbers
content: Accession #1976-95
name: label: Creator
content: Harrington, John Peabody, 1884-1961
label: Collection Creator
content: Harrington, John Peabody, 1884-1961
topic: label: Topic
content: Language and languages -- Documentation
label: Topic
content: Language and languages
label: Topic
content: African languages
label: Topic
content: Ainu language
label: Topic
content: Aramaic language
label: Topic
content: Bulgarian language
label: Topic
content: Burushaski language
label: Topic
content: Chinese language
label: Topic
content: Danish language
label: Topic
content: English language -- Old English, ca. 450-1100
label: Topic
content: English language
label: Topic
content: Evenki language
label: Topic
content: French language
label: Topic
content: Georgian language
label: Topic
content: German language
label: Topic
content: Scottish Gaelic language
label: Topic
content: Greek language
label: Topic
content: Hebrew language
label: Topic
content: Hungarian language
label: Topic
content: Icelandic language
label: Topic
content: Indo-European languages
label: Topic
content: Italian language
label: Topic
content: Kurdish language
label: Topic
content: Latin language
label: Topic
content: Lithuanian language
label: Topic
content: Linguistics
label: Topic
content: Persian language
label: Topic
content: Polish language
label: Topic
content: Russian language
label: Topic
content: Semitic languages
label: Topic
content: Thai language
label: Topic
content: Slavic languages
label: Topic
content: Tagalog language
label: Topic
content: Tamil language
label: Topic
content: Turkish language
label: Topic
content: Ural-Altaic languages
label: Topic
content: Welsh language
label: Topic
content: Yiddish language
label: Topic
content: Grammar, Comparative and general
label: Topic
content: Phonetics
creator: label: Creator
content: Harrington, John Peabody, 1884-1961
setName: label: See more items in
content: John Peabody Harrington papers
label: See more items in
content: John Peabody Harrington papers / Series 8: Notes and Writings on Special Linguistic Studies
bioghist: label: Biographical / Historical
content: By far the major focus of John P. Harrington's linguistic studies was the numerous languages of North, Central, and South America. Over the course of his career, however, he amassed perhaps several thousand pages on other world languages.

Harrington studied classical and Indo-European languages at Stanford University from 1902 to 1905 and during his graduate work in Germany from 1905 to 1907. In the early years after his return to the United States he made a study on "The Frequency of French Sounds" and did comparisons between vowel sounds in French, Italian, Portuguese, and English.

Harrington's interest in many world languages was renewed in the early 1920s when he became friends with Paul Vogenitz, a translator in the Division of Foreign Mails at the Post Office Department. Vogenitz, a student mainly of European languages, urged Harrington to attend the language classes which he took from time to time. Although Harrington was not in a position to do this, the two men corresponded frequently in German, Spanish, Russian, and Nahuatl among other languages. Vogenitz also shared much of his knowledge with Harrington by preparing grammatical exercises, word lists, and phonetic summaries. Among the languages for which he provided this type of information are Ainu, Bulgarian, Hungarian, Persian, Russian, Turkish, and Yiddish.

From February through April 1923, Harrington corresponded with T. T. Waterman regarding the latter's plan to prepare a map of the linguistic families of the world. Probably because of their proposed collaboration, Harrington made a trip to New York City in March. On this occasion he made use of secondary sources at the New York Public Library and Columbia University.

As a result of Harrington's interest in Arabic influences on the Spanish spoken in the American southwest, he began his study of Persian in 1928 in "an attempt toward transliterating into an international phonetic script the Calcutta version of the quatrains attributed to Omar Khayyam."

During the 1930s Harrington collaborated with Moses Steinberg and George M. Lamsa in the translation and reinterpretation of various religious texts in Aramaic, such as the Talmud and the Gospels.

Harrington also collected data on a wide variety of languages from approximately 1940 to 1947 while he was at work on a treatise titled "Linguistics." At this time he added material to his files on Latin, Greek, and the Celtic, eastern European, and Indic languages.
physdesc: label: Extent
content: 8 Boxes
unitdate: label: Date
content: circa 1902-circa 1947
dataSource: label: Archival Repository
content: National Anthropological Archives
identifier: label: Identifier
content: NAA.1976-95, Subseries 8.11
objectType: label: Type
content: Archival materials
label: Type
content: Notes
label: Type
content: Vocabulary
altformavail: label: Existence and Location of Copies
content: Microfilm and digital surrogates of microfilm are available. See Volume 8, reel 7. Not all files were microfilmed in their entirety either because of the repetitive nature of the material or due to the difficulties of filming dark photostats or very small slips of paper.
genre_format: label: Genre/Form
content: Notes
label: Genre/Form
content: Vocabulary
scopecontent: label: Scope and Contents
content: This subseries is part of the Notes and writings on special linguistic studies series in the John P. Harrington papers. His research on non-American languages are gathered here in an alphabetically arranged file. His notes cover African languages, Ainu, Anglo-Saxon, Aramaic, Bulgarian, Burushaski, Chinese, Danish, English, French, Gaelic, Georgian, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hungarian, Icelandic, Indic languages, Indo-European languages, Italian, Kurdish, Latin, Lithuanian, Persian, Polish, Russian, Semitic languages, Siamese, Slavic languages, Tagalog, Tamil, Tungus, Turkish, Ural-Altaic languages, Welsh, and Yiddish.The records contain a wide variety of materials, derived largely from secondary sources. There are bibliographic references, library request slips, and reading notes, as well as photostats and some printed matter. Also included are vocabulary lists, phonetic tables, texts, charts of linguistic relationships, notes from interviews, and copies of related correspondence. For the most part notes for any given language are scanty (from one to ten pages) and highly miscellaneous. His notes on Aramaic and Persian, however, are somewhat more organized and considerably more substantial, comprising several hundred pages each. Notes, largely on phonetics, that he obtained from his research at the New York Public Library and Columbia University account for a sizeable percentage of this subseries.