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From: Ross Clark <benlizro@ihug.co.nz>
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Date: Sat, 7 Dec 2024 23:56:57 +1300
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Did you know? His father, Wilhelm Müller, is the poet of Schubert's 
_Winterreise_ and _Die schöne Müllerin_.

Friedrich Max Müller studied at the University of Leipzig, was good at a 
lot of things, including languages, studied Sanskrit with Friedrich 
Schelling and Franz Bopp, first visited England in 1846 and by 1850 was 
Deputy Professor of Modern European Languages at Oxford.

"He was defeated in the 1860 election for the position of Boden 
Professor of Sanskrit, which was a "keen disappointment" to him. Müller 
was far better qualified for the post than the other candidate, Monier 
Monier-Williams, but Müller's theological views, Lutheranism, German 
birth, and lack of practical first-hand knowledge of India spoke against 
him." (Wiki)

So they created the Chair of Comparative Philology for him, which he 
occupied from 1868 until his death.

His "Lectures on the Science of Language", first published in the 1860s, 
were very widely read and introduced the British to the new comparative 
linguistics coming out of Germany.

He was also deeply interested in comparative religion, and started a 
50-volume translation project called _Sacred Books of the East_.

We have him to thank for the (deliberately) silly-sounding names for 
theories of the origin of language which had been put forward by his 
time: "ding-dong", "bow-wow", "pooh-pooh" etc.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_M%C3%BCller