Ralph Lilley Turner
Encyclopedia
Military Cross
The Military Cross is the third-level military decoration awarded to officers and other ranks of the British Armed Forces; and formerly also to officers of other Commonwealth countries....
(5 October 1888 – 22 April 1983) was an English
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
Indian languages philologist and university administrator. He is also the author of some publications concerning the Romani language
Romani language
Romani or Romany, Gypsy or Gipsy is any of several languages of the Romani people. They are Indic, sometimes classified in the "Central" or "Northwestern" zone, and sometimes treated as a branch of their own....
.
Turner was born in Charlton, London
Charlton, London
Charlton is a district of south London, England, and part of the London Borough of Greenwich. It is located east-southeast of Charing Cross. Charlton next Woolwich was an ancient parish in the county of Kent, which became part of the metropolitan area of London in 1855. It is home to Charlton...
. He was educated at the Perse School and Christ's College, Cambridge
Christ's College, Cambridge
Christ's College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge.With a reputation for high academic standards, Christ's College averaged top place in the Tompkins Table from 1980-2000 . In 2011, Christ's was placed sixth.-College history:...
. In 1913 he joined the Indian Educational Service as a lecturer at Queen's College, Benares. From 1915 to 1919 he served with the 2nd/3rd Queen Alexandra's Own Gurkha Rifles, winning the Military Cross
Military Cross
The Military Cross is the third-level military decoration awarded to officers and other ranks of the British Armed Forces; and formerly also to officers of other Commonwealth countries....
in Palestine
Palestine
Palestine is a conventional name, among others, used to describe the geographic region between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River, and various adjoining lands....
. From 1920 to 1922 he was Professor of Indian Linguistics at Benares Hindu University.
In 1922, Turner returned to England as Professor 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...
at the School of Oriental Studies at the University of London
University of London
-20th century:Shortly after 6 Burlington Gardens was vacated, the University went through a period of rapid expansion. Bedford College, Royal Holloway and the London School of Economics all joined in 1900, Regent's Park College, which had affiliated in 1841 became an official divinity school of the...
. Between 1924 and 1932, he also published several papers on Romani Studies in the Journal of the Gypsy Lore Society
Gypsy Lore Society
The Gypsy Lore Society was founded in Great Britain in 1888 to unite persons interested in the history and lore of Gypsies and rovers and to establish closer contacts among scholars studying aspects of such cultures. David MacRitchie was one of its founders and he worked with Francis Hindes Groome...
, including "On the position of Romani in Indo-Aryan" (1927). He was director of the school from 1937 to 1957, although he continued to occupy his chair as well until 1954. He was knighted
Knight Bachelor
The rank of Knight Bachelor is a part of the British honours system. It is the most basic rank of a man who has been knighted by the monarch but not as a member of one of the organised Orders of Chivalry...
in 1950. His magnum opus
Masterpiece
Masterpiece in modern usage refers to a creation that has been given much critical praise, especially one that is considered the greatest work of a person's career or to a work of outstanding creativity, skill or workmanship....
, the Comparative Dictionary
Dictionary
A dictionary is a collection of words in one or more specific languages, often listed alphabetically, with usage information, definitions, etymologies, phonetics, pronunciations, and other information; or a book of words in one language with their equivalents in another, also known as a lexicon...
of the Indo-Aryan languages
Indo-Aryan languages
The Indo-Aryan languages constitutes a branch of the Indo-Iranian languages, itself a branch of the Indo-European language family...
was published in 1966.
The British memorial in London to the Gurkhas was unveiled by Queen Elizabeth II
Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom
Elizabeth II is the constitutional monarch of 16 sovereign states known as the Commonwealth realms: the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Jamaica, Barbados, the Bahamas, Grenada, Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, Tuvalu, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Belize,...
on 3 December 1997. The legend on the Gurkha memorial is taken from the following quotation written by Sir Ralph
One of his grandchildren is Professor Geoffrey L. Smith
Geoffrey L. Smith
Professor Geoffrey Lilley Smith FRS FMedSci FIBiol is a British virologist and medical research authority in the area of Vaccinia virus and the family of Poxviruses...
, head of the Department of Virology at Imperial College London
Imperial College London
Imperial College London is a public research university located in London, United Kingdom, specialising in science, engineering, business and medicine...
.
Born
Another grandchild of Ralph Turner is David Tee, who is in the current England 45+ indoor cricket team. Earlier in his career he had a successful few years for Hertfordshire. He toured the West Indies representing Great British colleges.
Works
- A Comparative and Etymological Dictionary of the Nepali Language
- A Comparative Dictionary of the Indo-Aryan Languages