Background
Robert Henry Robins was born on July 1, 1921, in Broadstairs, England, United Kingdom. His two elder brothers had died when he was young so that he was virtually an only child of aged parents.
Robert Henry Robins was born on July 1, 1921, in Broadstairs, England, United Kingdom. His two elder brothers had died when he was young so that he was virtually an only child of aged parents.
Robins learned Latin and French at school and his father had taught him the Greek alphabet before he was introduced to Greek at the age of nine. He was fascinated by the intricacies of Latin grammar (especially the mysterious "ablative absolute"), by the idea that "French came from Latin" and the suggestion that English was "like French but also like German in a different way."
He won a scholarship to Tonbridge School in 1935 and was placed in the Classical Upper Fifth and the Classical Sixth Form the following year. As was usual in those days his education at Tonbridge consisted almost entirely of a traditional study of the grammar of Latin and Greek and the reading of classical texts, but he continued his personal interest in linguistic issues, especially the relationship between Latin and Greek, which led him to look up etymological entries in the relevant major dictionaries and even to read Otto Jespersen’s Language in 1940.
He won a scholarship for classics to New College, Oxford in 1939 and was awarded a First Class degree in Literae Humaniores ("Greats") in 1948. Robins later obtained a Doctor of Letters degree from London University in 1968.
Robins joined the new Department of Phonetics and Linguistics at School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, in 1948 and became a professor in 1966. Robins published General Linguistics: an introductory survey in 1964.
Robins was a professor of general linguistics at the University of London from 1966 to 1986 who wrote a number of books on that subject. His work in linguistics helped the then-fledgling discipline become more firmly established and organized. His first book, Ancient and Medieval Grammatical Theory in Europe, was published in 1951, and the following was his 1958 Yurok Language; his Short History of Linguistics, which was first published in 1967, is currently in its fourth edition. Some of his later works include the 1992 Endangered Languages and Byzantine Grammarians: Their Place in History, which appeared in 1993. Secretary of the Philological Society from 1961 to 1988, Robins also served as president of the International Committee of Linguists for twenty.years.
Robins is remembered as one of the pioneers in the establishment of linguistics (as distinct from the related but older discipline of philology) as an academic subject in Britain. More specifically and especially in his later life, he was recognized as the leading scholar throughout the world in the history of linguistics.
After his death, the Philological Society established an annual Robins Prize and the University of Luton has the R. H. Robins Memorial Prize for linguistics.
(This complete revision and updating of Professor Robins' ...)
1967
