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From: Ross Clark <benlizro@ihug.co.nz>
Newsgroups: sci.lang
Subject: Thomas Young died (10-5-1829)
Date: Sat, 11 May 2024 13:33:16 +1200
Organization: A noiseless patient Spider
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"Polymath...made notable contributions to the fields of vision, light, 
solid mechanics, energy, physiology, language, musical harmony, and 
Egyptology."

Some of you probably know the other stuff, but it's the last that's most 
familiar here. I believe PTD was of the opinion that Young deserved at 
least as much credit as Champollion for the decipherment of 
hieroglyphics, if not more.

More detail at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Young_(scientist)

And that ain't all. Crystal points out that Young coined the term 
"Indo-european" (in an 1814 review of Adelung's _Mithridates_).

AND
Here's a nice statement by Young (from the same review) about the 
"language/dialect" business that has been a perennial on sci.lang and 
a.u.e.:

"It is ... absolutely impossible to fix a correct and positive criterion 
of the degree of variation which is to constitute...a distinct language: 
for instance, whether Danish and Swedish are two languages or two 
dialects of one...."

AND
"In an appendix to his 1796 Göttingen dissertation De corporis hvmani 
viribvs conservatricibvs there are four pages added proposing a 
universal phonetic alphabet (so as 'not to leave these pages blank'; 
lit.: "Ne vacuae starent hae paginae, libuit e praelectione ante 
disputationem habenda tabellam literarum vniuersalem raptim 
describere"). It includes 16 "pure" vowel symbols, nasal vowels, various 
consonants, and examples of these, drawn primarily from French and 
English." (Wiki)