Ernest Bender
Encyclopedia
Ernest Bender was a Professor of Indo-Aryan languages and literature at the University of Pennsylvania
.
Bender was born in Buenos Aires
, Argentina
, on January 2, 1919, before moving to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
when he was aged four. He was admitted into the selective Greek
and Latin
program of Boys High School (Central High School), and graduated in 1937. Bender undertook his undergraduate studies at Temple University
where he continued his studies in classics
, firmly entrenching his lifelong interest in philology
and cultural history. Upoon earning his B.A. in 1941, Bender became a graduate student in the Oriental Studies Department of the University of Pennsylvania
. There he became acquainted with the three teachers who influenced him the most: W. Norman Brown
in Indology
, and Zellig Harris
and Henry Hoenigswald in linguistics
. Through Brown, Bender pursued a career in Indology, specializing in medieval Jainism
and its associated literature and art.
Shortly after the United States declared war on Japan in the wake of the attack on Pearl Harbor
in December 1941, Bender was drafted
into the United States Air Force
, but was discharged from active duty due to medical reasons. Due to his talent and background in classical languages, Bender was given a grant from the American Council of Learned Societies to study Hindi
and Urdu
at the Asia Society
in New York City
. He then returned to Philadelphia, serving from 1943 to 1944 as an instructor of Hindi and Urdu in the Army Specialized Training Program. From 1944 until 1946, Bender coordinated the Army Specialized Training Program in Japanese
. At the same time, Bender was awarded two consecutive Harrison fellowships at Pennsylvania for the study of Sanskrit
. While studying Indology, Bender continued working with Harris on linguistics, coauthoring two articles on the Cherokee language
. An unpublished manuscript of Cherokee texts, complete with translations and grammatical analysis is stored in the Boas Collection in the Library of the American Philosophical Society
.
Bender was awarded a Rockefeller fellowship from 1947 to 1948, visiting India
, Pakistan
, and Sri Lanka
. He was voracious photographer, copying many medieval manuscripts. His prolific archive of Jain materials was derived from this period. The Rockefeller grant also gave him the opportunity to work on the grammar of the Sinhalese language.
Upon his return to the United States, he was appointed to the newly created South Asia Regional Studies Department at the University of Pennsylvania. He became an assistant professor in 1950, in a joint appointment with the Oriental Studies Department. From 1955 to 1956, he returned to India and Sri Lanka on a Guggenheim fellowship to research the Old Gujarati language
. It was during this trip that he developed his grammars for Hindi and Urdu. He was elevated to associate professor with tenure in 1958, and became a professor in 1967.
In 1958, Bender began a three decade editorial relationship with the American Oriental Society
; he began as associate editor and became the chief editor in 1964, a post he held until 1988. He served as the president of the AOS from 1993 to 1994. He served as the vice-president of the International Association of Sanskrit Studies, and convened the 6th World Sanskrit Conference in Philadelphia in 1984. He was a member of many scholarly societies beyond those in America, including the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland; the L.D. Institute of Indology in Ahmedabad
; the Asiatic Society of Bengal; the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, Pune; and the Oriental Institute in Baroda.
Bender had a pivotal role in developing teaching methods for Indian subcontinent
al languages in the American graduate studies framework. During the World War II era and its immediate aftermath, when the discipline of linguistics began to gain acceptance, Bender participated in formulating teaching techniques for South Asian languages in the military system, US State Department staff, as well as graduate students. He authored ten monographs on linguistic or literary topics concerning Indian languages, and several articles, including art historical topics. He published grammars of Hindi, Urdu and Bengali language
and completed, but did not publish grammars for Gujarati and Sinhalese. In 1992, he published a critical edition and translation of the Salibhadra-Dhanna-Carita, a medieval Jain didactic story composed in Old Gujarati. After retiring in 1989, he spent significant time compiling an etymological glossary of Old Gujarati. He died at his home, Newtown Square, Pennsylvania, on April 18, 1996 of a heart attack, aged 77 years old.
University of Pennsylvania
The University of Pennsylvania is a private, Ivy League university located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. Penn is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States,Penn is the fourth-oldest using the founding dates claimed by each institution...
.
Bender was born in Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires is the capital and largest city of Argentina, and the second-largest metropolitan area in South America, after São Paulo. It is located on the western shore of the estuary of the Río de la Plata, on the southeastern coast of the South American continent...
, Argentina
Argentina
Argentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...
, on January 2, 1919, before moving to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Philadelphia is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the county seat of Philadelphia County, with which it is coterminous. The city is located in the Northeastern United States along the Delaware and Schuylkill rivers. It is the fifth-most-populous city in the United States,...
when he was aged four. He was admitted into the selective Greek
Greek language
Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...
and Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
program of Boys High School (Central High School), and graduated in 1937. Bender undertook his undergraduate studies at Temple University
Temple University
Temple University is a comprehensive public research university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. Originally founded in 1884 by Dr. Russell Conwell, Temple University is among the nation's largest providers of professional education and prepares the largest body of professional...
where he continued his studies in classics
Classics
Classics is the branch of the Humanities comprising the languages, literature, philosophy, history, art, archaeology and other culture of the ancient Mediterranean world ; especially Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome during Classical Antiquity Classics (sometimes encompassing Classical Studies or...
, firmly entrenching his lifelong interest in philology
Philology
Philology is the study of language in written historical sources; it is a combination of literary studies, history and linguistics.Classical philology is the philology of Greek and Classical Latin...
and cultural history. Upoon earning his B.A. in 1941, Bender became a graduate student in the Oriental Studies Department of the University of Pennsylvania
University of Pennsylvania
The University of Pennsylvania is a private, Ivy League university located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. Penn is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States,Penn is the fourth-oldest using the founding dates claimed by each institution...
. There he became acquainted with the three teachers who influenced him the most: W. Norman Brown
W. Norman Brown
William Norman Brown was a distinguished Indologist, Sanskritist who established the first academic department of South Asian Studies in the U.S. and organized the American Oriental Society in 1926...
in Indology
Indology
Indology is the academic study of the history and cultures, languages, and literature of the Indian subcontinent , and as such is a subset of Asian studies....
, and Zellig Harris
Zellig Harris
Zellig Sabbettai Harris was a renowned American linguist, mathematical syntactician, and methodologist of science. Originally a Semiticist, he is best known for his work in structural linguistics and discourse analysis and for the discovery of transformational structure in language...
and Henry Hoenigswald in linguistics
Linguistics
Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. Linguistics can be broadly broken into three categories or subfields of study: language form, language meaning, and language in context....
. Through Brown, Bender pursued a career in Indology, specializing in medieval Jainism
Jainism
Jainism is an Indian religion that prescribes a path of non-violence towards all living beings. Its philosophy and practice emphasize the necessity of self-effort to move the soul towards divine consciousness and liberation. Any soul that has conquered its own inner enemies and achieved the state...
and its associated literature and art.
Shortly after the United States declared war on Japan in the wake of the attack on Pearl Harbor
Attack on Pearl Harbor
The attack on Pearl Harbor was a surprise military strike conducted by the Imperial Japanese Navy against the United States naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on the morning of December 7, 1941...
in December 1941, Bender was drafted
Conscription
Conscription is the compulsory enlistment of people in some sort of national service, most often military service. Conscription dates back to antiquity and continues in some countries to the present day under various names...
into the United States Air Force
United States Air Force
The United States Air Force is the aerial warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the American uniformed services. Initially part of the United States Army, the USAF was formed as a separate branch of the military on September 18, 1947 under the National Security Act of...
, but was discharged from active duty due to medical reasons. Due to his talent and background in classical languages, Bender was given a grant from the American Council of Learned Societies to study Hindi
Hindi
Standard Hindi, or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi, also known as Manak Hindi , High Hindi, Nagari Hindi, and Literary Hindi, is a standardized and sanskritized register of the Hindustani language derived from the Khariboli dialect of Delhi...
and Urdu
Urdu
Urdu is a register of the Hindustani language that is identified with Muslims in South Asia. It belongs to the Indo-European family. Urdu is the national language and lingua franca of Pakistan. It is also widely spoken in some regions of India, where it is one of the 22 scheduled languages and an...
at the Asia Society
Asia Society
The Asia Society is a non-profit organization that focuses on educating the world about Asia. It has several centers in the United States and around the world Hong Kong, Manila, Mumbai, Seoul, Shanghai, and Melbourne...
in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
. He then returned to Philadelphia, serving from 1943 to 1944 as an instructor of Hindi and Urdu in the Army Specialized Training Program. From 1944 until 1946, Bender coordinated the Army Specialized Training Program in Japanese
Japanese language
is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family, which has a number of proposed relationships with other languages, none of which has gained wide acceptance among historical linguists .Japanese is an...
. At the same time, Bender was awarded two consecutive Harrison fellowships at Pennsylvania for the study of Sanskrit
Sanskrit
Sanskrit , is a historical Indo-Aryan language and the primary liturgical language of Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism.Buddhism: besides Pali, see Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Today, it is listed as one of the 22 scheduled languages of India and is an official language of the state of Uttarakhand...
. While studying Indology, Bender continued working with Harris on linguistics, coauthoring two articles on the Cherokee language
Cherokee language
Cherokee is an Iroquoian language spoken by the Cherokee people which uses a unique syllabary writing system. It is the only Southern Iroquoian language that remains spoken. Cherokee is a polysynthetic language.-North American etymology:...
. An unpublished manuscript of Cherokee texts, complete with translations and grammatical analysis is stored in the Boas Collection in the Library of the American Philosophical Society
American Philosophical Society
The American Philosophical Society, founded in 1743, and located in Philadelphia, Pa., is an eminent scholarly organization of international reputation, that promotes useful knowledge in the sciences and humanities through excellence in scholarly research, professional meetings, publications,...
.
Bender was awarded a Rockefeller fellowship from 1947 to 1948, visiting India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
, Pakistan
Pakistan
Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...
, and Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka, officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka is a country off the southern coast of the Indian subcontinent. Known until 1972 as Ceylon , Sri Lanka is an island surrounded by the Indian Ocean, the Gulf of Mannar and the Palk Strait, and lies in the vicinity of India and the...
. He was voracious photographer, copying many medieval manuscripts. His prolific archive of Jain materials was derived from this period. The Rockefeller grant also gave him the opportunity to work on the grammar of the Sinhalese language.
Upon his return to the United States, he was appointed to the newly created South Asia Regional Studies Department at the University of Pennsylvania. He became an assistant professor in 1950, in a joint appointment with the Oriental Studies Department. From 1955 to 1956, he returned to India and Sri Lanka on a Guggenheim fellowship to research the Old Gujarati language
Gujarati language
Gujarati is an Indo-Aryan language, and part of the greater Indo-European language family. It is derived from a language called Old Gujarati which is the ancestor language of the modern Gujarati and Rajasthani languages...
. It was during this trip that he developed his grammars for Hindi and Urdu. He was elevated to associate professor with tenure in 1958, and became a professor in 1967.
In 1958, Bender began a three decade editorial relationship with the American Oriental Society
American Oriental Society
The American Oriental Society was chartered under the laws of Massachusetts on September 7, 1842. It is one of the oldest learned societies in America, and is the oldest devoted to a particular field of scholarship....
; he began as associate editor and became the chief editor in 1964, a post he held until 1988. He served as the president of the AOS from 1993 to 1994. He served as the vice-president of the International Association of Sanskrit Studies, and convened the 6th World Sanskrit Conference in Philadelphia in 1984. He was a member of many scholarly societies beyond those in America, including the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland; the L.D. Institute of Indology in Ahmedabad
Ahmedabad
Ahmedabad also known as Karnavati is the largest city in Gujarat, India. It is the former capital of Gujarat and is also the judicial capital of Gujarat as the Gujarat High Court has its seat in Ahmedabad...
; the Asiatic Society of Bengal; the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, Pune; and the Oriental Institute in Baroda.
Bender had a pivotal role in developing teaching methods for Indian subcontinent
Indian subcontinent
The Indian subcontinent, also Indian Subcontinent, Indo-Pak Subcontinent or South Asian Subcontinent is a region of the Asian continent on the Indian tectonic plate from the Hindu Kush or Hindu Koh, Himalayas and including the Kuen Lun and Karakoram ranges, forming a land mass which extends...
al languages in the American graduate studies framework. During the World War II era and its immediate aftermath, when the discipline of linguistics began to gain acceptance, Bender participated in formulating teaching techniques for South Asian languages in the military system, US State Department staff, as well as graduate students. He authored ten monographs on linguistic or literary topics concerning Indian languages, and several articles, including art historical topics. He published grammars of Hindi, Urdu and Bengali language
Bengali language
Bengali or Bangla is an eastern Indo-Aryan language. It is native to the region of eastern South Asia known as Bengal, which comprises present day Bangladesh, the Indian state of West Bengal, and parts of the Indian states of Tripura and Assam. It is written with the Bengali script...
and completed, but did not publish grammars for Gujarati and Sinhalese. In 1992, he published a critical edition and translation of the Salibhadra-Dhanna-Carita, a medieval Jain didactic story composed in Old Gujarati. After retiring in 1989, he spent significant time compiling an etymological glossary of Old Gujarati. He died at his home, Newtown Square, Pennsylvania, on April 18, 1996 of a heart attack, aged 77 years old.