- Gerard Clauson
Sir Gerard Leslie Makins Clauson (1891–1974) was an English civil servant, businessman, and
Orientalist best known for his studies of theTurkish language .Clauson attended
Eton College , where he was Captain of School, and where, at age 15 or 16, he published a critical edition of a shortPali text, "A New Kammavācā" in the "Journal of the Pali Text Society". In 1906, when his father was named Chief Secretary forCyprus , he taught himself Turkish to complement his school Greek. He studied atCorpus Christi College, Oxford , in classics, receiving his degree in Greats, then became BodenSanskrit Scholar, 1911; Hall-Houghtman Syriac Prizeman, 1913; and James Mew Arabic Scholar, 1920. DuringWorld War I , he fought in thebattle of Gallipoli but spent the majority of his effort insignals intelligence concerned with German and Ottoman army codes.These were the years in which the great
Central Asia n expeditions ofSven Hedin , SirAurel Stein , etc., were unearthing new texts in a variety of languages including Tokharian,Khotanese , andTumshuqese , and Clauson actively engaged in unraveling their philologies, as well as Chinese Buddhist texts in theTibetan script .In 1919 he began work in the
British Civil Service , which was to culminate in serving as the Assistant Under-Secretary of State in theColonial Office , 1940-1951, in which capacity he chaired the International Wheat Conference, 1947, and International Rubber Conference, 1951. After his mandatory retirement at age 60, he switched to a business career and in time served as chairman ofPirelli , 1960-1969.elected works
*"An etymological dictionary of pre-thirteenth-century Turkish", Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972.
*"Studies in Turkic and Mongolic Linguistics", Routledge, 2002 (reprint). ISBN 0415297729.References
*C. Edmund Bosworth, "Introduction" to Clausen's "Studies in Turkic and Mongolic Linguistics"
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