Victor Henry
Victor Henry was a French philologist, specializing in Indian languages.Biography
Having held appointments at the University of Douai and the University of Lille, Henry was appointed professor of Sanskrit and comparative grammar at the University of Paris. A prolific and versatile writer, he is probably best known by the English translations of his Précis de Grammaire comparée de l'anglais et de l'allemand and Précis de Grammaire comparée du Grec et du Latin.
Important works by him on India and Indian languages are:
- Manuel pour étudier le Sanscrit védique
- Éléments de Sanscrit classique
- Précis de grammaire Pâlie
- Les Littératures de l'Inde: sanscrit, Pâli, Prâcrit
- La Magie dans l'Inde antique
- Le Parsisme
- L'Agniṣṭoma
Native American languages and minority languages of France also claimed his attention.
Le Langage martien is a curious book. It contains a discussion of some 40 phrases, which a certain Mademoiselle Hélène Smith, while on a hypnotic visit to the planet Mars, learnt and repeated and even wrote down during her trance as specimens of a language spoken there, explained to her by a disembodied interpreter.
