Andrew Dalby
Encyclopedia
Andrew Dalby is an English
linguist, translator
and historian
who has written articles and several books on a wide range of topics including food history
, language
, Classical texts
, and Wikipedia
.
, French
and Greek
at the Bristol Grammar School
and University of Cambridge
. Here he also studied Romance languages
and linguistics
, earning a bachelor's degree in 1970.
Dalby worked for fifteen years at Cambridge University Library
, eventually specializing in Southern Asia. He gained familiarity with some other languages because of his work there, where he had to work with foreign serials and afterwards with South Asia
and Southeast Asia
n materials. He also wrote articles on multilingual topics linked with the library and its collections.
In 1982 and 1983 he collaborated with Sao Saimong
in cataloguing the Scott Collection of manuscript
s and documents from Burma (especially the Shan State
s) and Indochina
. Dalby later published a short biography of the colonial civil servant and explorer J. G. Scott
, who formed the collection. To help him with this task, he took classes in Cambridge again in Sanskrit, Hindi and Pali
and in London in Burmese and Thai.
and on renovating another library at London House (Goodenough College
). He also served as Honorary Librarian of the Institute of Linguists, for whose journal The Linguist
he writes a regular column. He later did a part-time Ph.D. at Birkbeck College, London in ancient history (in 1987-93), which improved his Latin and Greek. His Dictionary of Languages was published in 1998. Language In Danger, on the extinction of languages and the threatened monolingual future, followed in 2002.
Meanwhile, he began to work on food history and contributed to Alan Davidson
's journal Petits Propos Culinaires
; He was eventually one of Davidson's informal helpers on the Oxford Companion to Food
. Dalby's first food history book, Siren Feasts, appeared in 1995 and won a Runciman Award
; it is also well known in Greece, where it was translated as Seireneia Deipna. At the same time he was working with Sally Grainger on The Classical Cookbook, the first historical cookbook to look beyond Apicius
to other ancient Greek
and Roman sources in which recipes are found.
Dangerous Tastes, on the history of spices, was the Guild of Food Writers
Food Book of the Year for 2001. Work on this also led to Dalby's first article for Gastronomica
magazine, in which he traced the disastrous exploration of Gonzalo Pizarro
in search of La Canela
in eastern Ecuador
, showing how the myth of the "Valley of Cinnamon" first arose and identifying the real tree species which was at the root of the legend. Dalby's light-hearted biography of Bacchus
includes a retelling, rare in English, of the story of Prosymnus
and the price he demanded for guiding Dionysus to Hades
. His epilogue
to Petronius' Satyrica
combines a gastronomic commentary on the "Feast of Trimalchio" with a fictional dénouement inspired by the fate of Petronius
himself.
developed out of two academic papers from the 1990s in which he argued that the Iliad
and Odyssey
must be seen as belonging to the same world as that of the early Greek lyric poets but to a less aristocratic genre. Returning to these themes, he spotlit the unknown poet who, long after the time of the traditional Homer
, at last saw the Iliad
and Odyssey
recorded in writing. As he teasingly suggested, based on what we can judge of this poet's interests and on the circumstances in which oral poetry
has been recorded elsewhere, "it is possible, and even probable, that this poet was a woman."
of the English language
.
Dalby profiles endangered languages and discusses the significance of their disappearance, which he estimates occurs at a rate of one every two weeks. He states that the world is diminished by each language lost because they encapsulate "local knowledge and ways of looking at the human condition that die with the last speaker." He also discusses the way stronger languages "squeeze out" others, using the rise of Latin and the extinctions that occurred around the Mediterranean in classical times as an example, and notes a similar pattern that Irish
, Welsh
, and various Native American languages and indigenous Australian languages have faced in the English-speaking world, where they "were banned in school to force minority groups to speak the language of the majority". Dalby writes that preferences have shifted toward encouraging minority languages and that many can be saved. His account was described as engrossing by The Wall Street Journal
. The book disputes advocacy of a single common language as a means to a happier, more peaceful, and improved world.
English people
The English are a nation and ethnic group native to England, who speak English. The English identity is of early mediaeval origin, when they were known in Old English as the Anglecynn. England is now a country of the United Kingdom, and the majority of English people in England are British Citizens...
linguist, translator
Translation
Translation is the communication of the meaning of a source-language text by means of an equivalent target-language text. Whereas interpreting undoubtedly antedates writing, translation began only after the appearance of written literature; there exist partial translations of the Sumerian Epic of...
and historian
Historian
A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the study of all history in time. If the individual is...
who has written articles and several books on a wide range of topics including food history
Food history
Food history is an interdisciplinary field that examines the history of food, and the cultural, economic, environmental, and sociological impacts of food. Food history is considered distinct from the more traditional field of culinary history, which focuses on the origin and recreation of specific...
, language
Language
Language may refer either to the specifically human capacity for acquiring and using complex systems of communication, or to a specific instance of such a system of complex communication...
, Classical texts
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...
, and Wikipedia
Wikipedia
Wikipedia is a free, web-based, collaborative, multilingual encyclopedia project supported by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation. Its 20 million articles have been written collaboratively by volunteers around the world. Almost all of its articles can be edited by anyone with access to the site,...
.
Education and early career
Dalby studied LatinLatin
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...
, French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
and 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;...
at the Bristol Grammar School
Bristol Grammar School
Bristol Grammar School is a co-educational independent school in Clifton, Bristol, England. The school was founded in 1532 by two brothers, Robert and Nicholas Thorne....
and University of Cambridge
University of Cambridge
The University of Cambridge is a public research university located in Cambridge, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest university in both the United Kingdom and the English-speaking world , and the seventh-oldest globally...
. Here he also studied Romance languages
Romance languages
The Romance languages are a branch of the Indo-European language family, more precisely of the Italic languages subfamily, comprising all the languages that descend from Vulgar Latin, the language of ancient Rome...
and 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....
, earning a bachelor's degree in 1970.
Dalby worked for fifteen years at Cambridge University Library
Cambridge University Library
The Cambridge University Library is the centrally-administered library of Cambridge University in England. It comprises five separate libraries:* the University Library main building * the Medical Library...
, eventually specializing in Southern Asia. He gained familiarity with some other languages because of his work there, where he had to work with foreign serials and afterwards with South Asia
South Asia
South Asia, also known as Southern Asia, is the southern region of the Asian continent, which comprises the sub-Himalayan countries and, for some authorities , also includes the adjoining countries to the west and the east...
and Southeast Asia
Southeast Asia
Southeast Asia, South-East Asia, South East Asia or Southeastern Asia is a subregion of Asia, consisting of the countries that are geographically south of China, east of India, west of New Guinea and north of Australia. The region lies on the intersection of geological plates, with heavy seismic...
n materials. He also wrote articles on multilingual topics linked with the library and its collections.
In 1982 and 1983 he collaborated with Sao Saimong
Sao Saimong
Sao Sāimöng or Sao Sāimöng Mangrāi was a member of the princely family of Kengtung. He was a government minister in Burma soon after independence; he was also a scholar, historian and linguist...
in cataloguing the Scott Collection of manuscript
Manuscript
A manuscript or handwrite is written information that has been manually created by someone or some people, such as a hand-written letter, as opposed to being printed or reproduced some other way...
s and documents from Burma (especially the Shan State
Shan State
Shan State is a state of Burma . Shan State borders China to the north, Laos to the east, and Thailand to the south, and five administrative divisions of Burma in the west. Largest of the 14 administrative divisions by land area, Shan State covers 155,800 km², almost a quarter of the total...
s) and Indochina
Indochina
The Indochinese peninsula, is a region in Southeast Asia. It lies roughly southwest of China, and east of India. The name has its origins in the French, Indochine, as a combination of the names of "China" and "India", and was adopted when French colonizers in Vietnam began expanding their territory...
. Dalby later published a short biography of the colonial civil servant and explorer J. G. Scott
James George Scott
Sir George Scott, KCIE was a Scottish journalist and colonial administrator who helped establish British colonial rule in Burma, and in addition introduced soccer to Burma ....
, who formed the collection. To help him with this task, he took classes in Cambridge again in Sanskrit, Hindi and Pali
Páli
- External links :* *...
and in London in Burmese and Thai.
Regent's College and food writing
After his time at Cambridge, Dalby worked in London helping to start the library at Regent's CollegeRegent's College
Regent's College is located in Regent's Park, London, England. It is one of the two largest groups of buildings in the park, along with the London Zoo, and was built on the site of South Villa, one of the original eight Regent's Park villas....
and on renovating another library at London House (Goodenough College
Goodenough College
Goodenough College is a postgraduate residence and educational trust on Mecklenburgh Square in Bloomsbury, central London, England. Other names under which the College has been known are London House, William Goodenough House, and the London Goodenough Trust.-Profile:The College is an international...
). He also served as Honorary Librarian of the Institute of Linguists, for whose journal The Linguist
The Linguist (magazine)
The Linguist is the official bimonthly journal of the British Chartered Institute of Linguists. Apart from news of the Institute and Fellows it publishes articles on translation and interpreting, bilingualism and language use, alongside book reviews and current opinions. The editor is Miranda Moore...
he writes a regular column. He later did a part-time Ph.D. at Birkbeck College, London in ancient history (in 1987-93), which improved his Latin and Greek. His Dictionary of Languages was published in 1998. Language In Danger, on the extinction of languages and the threatened monolingual future, followed in 2002.
Meanwhile, he began to work on food history and contributed to Alan Davidson
Alan Davidson (food writer)
Alan Eaton Davidson was a British diplomat and historian best known for his writing and editing on food and gastronomy. He was the author of the 900-page, encyclopedic The Oxford Companion to Food .The son of a Scottish tax inspector, Davidson was born in Londonderry, Northern Ireland...
's journal Petits Propos Culinaires
Petits Propos Culinaires
Petits Propos Culinaires is a journal of the history of food and cookery. Founded by Alan Davidson in 1979, it is now edited by Tom Jaine and is published by Prospect Books. The frequency of publication, three times a year, has not varied; nor has the format...
; He was eventually one of Davidson's informal helpers on the Oxford Companion to Food
Oxford Companion to Food
The Oxford Companion to Food is an encyclopedia about food. It was edited by Alan Davidson and published by Oxford University Press in 1999. It was also issued in softcover under the name The Penguin Companion to Food...
. Dalby's first food history book, Siren Feasts, appeared in 1995 and won a Runciman Award
Steven Runciman
The Hon. Sir James Cochran Stevenson Runciman CH — known as Steven Runciman — was a British historian known for his work on the Middle Ages...
; it is also well known in Greece, where it was translated as Seireneia Deipna. At the same time he was working with Sally Grainger on The Classical Cookbook, the first historical cookbook to look beyond Apicius
Apicius
Apicius is the title of a collection of Roman cookery recipes, usually thought to have been compiled in the late 4th or early 5th century AD and written in a language that is in many ways closer to Vulgar than to Classical Latin....
to other ancient Greek
Diet of Ancient Greece
Ancient Greek cuisine was characterized by its frugality, reflecting agricultural hardship. It was founded on the "Mediterranean triad": wheat, olive oil, and wine....
and Roman sources in which recipes are found.
Dangerous Tastes, on the history of spices, was the Guild of Food Writers
Guild of Food Writers
The Guild of Food Writers is the professional association of food writers and broadcasters in the United Kingdom. It has over 390 authors, broadcasters, columnists and journalists amongst its members.-Activities:The Guild:...
Food Book of the Year for 2001. Work on this also led to Dalby's first article for Gastronomica
Gastronomica
Gastronomica is a quarterly academic journal published by the University of California Press. It was established in 2001 and is currently edited by Darra Goldstein. Gastronomica covers the history, literature, representation, and cultural impact of food....
magazine, in which he traced the disastrous exploration of Gonzalo Pizarro
Gonzalo Pizarro
Gonzalo Pizarro y Alonso was a Spanish conquistador and younger paternal half-brother of Francisco Pizarro, the conqueror of the Inca Empire...
in search of La Canela
La Canela
La Canela, the Valley of Cinnamon, is a legendary location in South America. As with El Dorado, its legend grew out of expectations aroused by the voyage of Columbus...
in eastern Ecuador
Ecuador
Ecuador , officially the Republic of Ecuador is a representative democratic republic in South America, bordered by Colombia on the north, Peru on the east and south, and by the Pacific Ocean to the west. It is one of only two countries in South America, along with Chile, that do not have a border...
, showing how the myth of the "Valley of Cinnamon" first arose and identifying the real tree species which was at the root of the legend. Dalby's light-hearted biography of Bacchus
Dionysus
Dionysus was the god of the grape harvest, winemaking and wine, of ritual madness and ecstasy in Greek mythology. His name in Linear B tablets shows he was worshipped from c. 1500—1100 BC by Mycenean Greeks: other traces of Dionysian-type cult have been found in ancient Minoan Crete...
includes a retelling, rare in English, of the story of Prosymnus
Prosymnus
Prosymnus or Polymnus , in Greek mythology, was a shepherd living near the reputedly bottomless Alcyonian Lake, hazardous to swimmers, which lay in the Argolid, on the coast of the Gulf of Argos, near the prehistoric site of Lerna....
and the price he demanded for guiding Dionysus to Hades
Hades
Hades , Hadēs, originally , Haidēs or , Aidēs , meaning "the unseen") was the ancient Greek god of the underworld. The genitive , Haidou, was an elision to denote locality: "[the house/dominion] of Hades". Eventually, the nominative came to designate the abode of the dead.In Greek mythology, Hades...
. His epilogue
Supplements to the Satyricon
Petronius's Satyricon, the only realistic classical Latin novel , survives in a very fragmentary form. Many readers have wondered how the story would begin and end....
to Petronius' Satyrica
Satyricon
Satyricon is a Latin work of fiction in a mixture of prose and poetry. It is believed to have been written by Gaius Petronius, though the manuscript tradition identifies the author as a certain Titus Petronius...
combines a gastronomic commentary on the "Feast of Trimalchio" with a fictional dénouement inspired by the fate of Petronius
Petronius
Gaius Petronius Arbiter was a Roman courtier during the reign of Nero. He is generally believed to be the author of the Satyricon, a satirical novel believed to have been written during the Neronian age.-Life:...
himself.
Classics
Dalby's Rediscovering HomerRediscovering Homer
Rediscovering Homer is a 2006 book by Andrew Dalby. It sets out the problems of origin, dating and authorship of the two ancient Greek epics, Iliad and Odyssey, usually attributed to Homer....
developed out of two academic papers from the 1990s in which he argued that the Iliad
Iliad
The Iliad is an epic poem in dactylic hexameters, traditionally attributed to Homer. Set during the Trojan War, the ten-year siege of the city of Troy by a coalition of Greek states, it tells of the battles and events during the weeks of a quarrel between King Agamemnon and the warrior Achilles...
and Odyssey
Odyssey
The Odyssey is one of two major ancient Greek epic poems attributed to Homer. It is, in part, a sequel to the Iliad, the other work ascribed to Homer. The poem is fundamental to the modern Western canon, and is the second—the Iliad being the first—extant work of Western literature...
must be seen as belonging to the same world as that of the early Greek lyric poets but to a less aristocratic genre. Returning to these themes, he spotlit the unknown poet who, long after the time of the traditional Homer
Ancient accounts of Homer
The ancient accounts of Homer include many passages in archaic and classical Greek poets and prose authors that mention or allude to Homer, and ten biographies of Homer, often referred to as Lives.-Date of Homer:...
, at last saw the Iliad
Iliad
The Iliad is an epic poem in dactylic hexameters, traditionally attributed to Homer. Set during the Trojan War, the ten-year siege of the city of Troy by a coalition of Greek states, it tells of the battles and events during the weeks of a quarrel between King Agamemnon and the warrior Achilles...
and Odyssey
Odyssey
The Odyssey is one of two major ancient Greek epic poems attributed to Homer. It is, in part, a sequel to the Iliad, the other work ascribed to Homer. The poem is fundamental to the modern Western canon, and is the second—the Iliad being the first—extant work of Western literature...
recorded in writing. As he teasingly suggested, based on what we can judge of this poet's interests and on the circumstances in which oral poetry
Oral poetry
Oral poetry can be defined in various ways. A strict definition would include only poetry that is composed and transmitted without any aid of writing. However, the complex relationships between written and spoken literature in some societies can make this definition hard to maintain, and oral...
has been recorded elsewhere, "it is possible, and even probable, that this poet was a woman."
Languages
Dalby's book Language in Danger: The Loss of Linguistic Diversity and the Threat to Our Future, focuses on the decline and extinction of languages from ancient times to the modern era. Dalby attributes the loss to the emergence of large centralised political groupings, the spread of communications technologies, and the hegemonyHegemony
Hegemony is an indirect form of imperial dominance in which the hegemon rules sub-ordinate states by the implied means of power rather than direct military force. In Ancient Greece , hegemony denoted the politico–military dominance of a city-state over other city-states...
of the English language
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
.
Dalby profiles endangered languages and discusses the significance of their disappearance, which he estimates occurs at a rate of one every two weeks. He states that the world is diminished by each language lost because they encapsulate "local knowledge and ways of looking at the human condition that die with the last speaker." He also discusses the way stronger languages "squeeze out" others, using the rise of Latin and the extinctions that occurred around the Mediterranean in classical times as an example, and notes a similar pattern that Irish
Irish language
Irish , also known as Irish Gaelic, is a Goidelic language of the Indo-European language family, originating in Ireland and historically spoken by the Irish people. Irish is now spoken as a first language by a minority of Irish people, as well as being a second language of a larger proportion of...
, Welsh
Welsh language
Welsh is a member of the Brythonic branch of the Celtic languages spoken natively in Wales, by some along the Welsh border in England, and in Y Wladfa...
, and various Native American languages and indigenous Australian languages have faced in the English-speaking world, where they "were banned in school to force minority groups to speak the language of the majority". Dalby writes that preferences have shifted toward encouraging minority languages and that many can be saved. His account was described as engrossing by The Wall Street Journal
The Wall Street Journal
The Wall Street Journal is an American English-language international daily newspaper. It is published in New York City by Dow Jones & Company, a division of News Corporation, along with the Asian and European editions of the Journal....
. The book disputes advocacy of a single common language as a means to a happier, more peaceful, and improved world.
Works
- 1993: South East Asia: a guide to reference material
- 1995: Siren Feasts: a history of food and gastronomy in Greece
- 1996: The Classical Cookbook
- 1998: Cato: On Farming (translation and commentary)
- 1998: Dictionary of Languages
- 1998: Guide to World Language Dictionaries
- 2000: Empire of Pleasures: Luxury and Indulgence in the Roman World
- 2000: Dangerous Tastes: the story of spices
- 2002: Language in Danger; The Loss of Linguistic Diversity and the Threat to Our Future Columbia University 329 pages
- 2003: Flavours of Byzantium
- 2003: Food in the ancient world from A to Z
- 2005: Bacchus: a biography
- 2005: Venus: a biography
- 2006: Rediscovering HomerRediscovering HomerRediscovering Homer is a 2006 book by Andrew Dalby. It sets out the problems of origin, dating and authorship of the two ancient Greek epics, Iliad and Odyssey, usually attributed to Homer....
- 2009: The World and WikipediaThe World and WikipediaThe World and Wikipedia: How We are Editing Reality is a book written by the British linguist Andrew Dalby and published by Siduri Books on 25 September 2009....
- 2009: Cheese: a global historyCheese: A Global HistoryCheese: A Global History is a non-fiction account of cheese in history and literature by Andrew Dalby. The book explores accounts of cheese in fiction and through historical records, beginning from its unrecorded discovery but with emphasis on more recent developments...
External links
- Andrew Dalby's website