{{Short description|English linguist (1918–2004)}} {{for|the art critic who sometimes used the pseudonym 'Sidney Allen'|Sadakichi Hartmann}} {{Use dmy dates|date=September 2019}}
{{Infobox academic | name = William Sidney Allen | honorific_suffix = [[Fellow of the British Academy|FBA]] | image = W. Sidney Allen (Classicist), obituary photo from PBA.png | image_size = | alt = Black-and-white photograph of an elderly white man, wearing a grey suit and dark tie, his hair combed over to the right. | caption = Photograph of Allen c.1982, from his obituary in the [[Proceedings of the British Academy]] | birth_date = {{birth date|1918|03|18|df=yes}} | birth_place = London | death_date = {{death date and age|2004|04|22|1918|03|18|df=yes}} | death_place = [[Cambridge]] | occupation = Academic | period = | known_for = | title = | boards = <!--board or similar positions extraneous to main occupation--> | spouse = {{plainlist| * {{marriage |Aenea McCallum |1955|1996 |end=died}} * {{marriage |Diana Stroud |2002}}}} | alma_mater = [[Trinity College, Cambridge|Trinity College]], [[University of Cambridge|Cambridge]] | doctoral_advisor = [[Arthur James Beattie|A. J. Beattie]] | thesis_title = Linguistic problems and their treatment in antiquity | thesis_year = 1948 | discipline = [[Classics|Classical Philology]], [[Linguistics]] | sub_discipline = [[Historical linguistics]], [[Sanskrit]], [[Proto-Indo-European language|Indo-European]] [[phonology]]. | workplaces = [[School of Oriental & African Studies|School of Oriental & African Studies, London]], Trinity College, Cambridge | notable_works = ''Vox Latina'' (1965); ''Vox Graeca'' (1968) }} '''William Sidney Allen''', {{post-nominals|country=GBR|commas=on|FBA|size=100%}} (18 March 1918 – 22 April 2004),{{sfn|Lyons|2006|p=3}} was a British linguist and philologist, best known for his work on [[Indo-European languages|Indo-European]] [[phonology]].
==Early life and undergraduate education==
Allen was born in north [[London]], the elder son of William Percy Allen, a maintenance engineer in a printing works, and Ethel Pierce, the daughter of a [[Typesetting|compositor]].{{sfn|Lyons|2006|p=3}} From childhood, he was primarily known as 'Sidney', to avoid confusion with his father.{{sfn|Lyons|2006|p=3}}
After a year at private school, Allen was educated at a local council school before attending [[Christ's Hospital]] on a scholarship.{{sfn|Lyons|2006|p=4}} On the advice of his form master, [[Derrick Somerset Macnutt|Derrick Macnutt]] (a fellow Classicist, better known as the crossword compiler 'Ximenes'), he sat the entrance exam to read [[Classics]] at [[Trinity College, Cambridge]] in 1937, and was awarded a major scholarship. As an undergraduate at Trinity, his teachers included [[Harold Walter Bailey]], professor of [[Sanskrit]], and N. B. Jopson, later president of the [[Philological Society]].{{sfn|Lyons|2006|p=5}}
==Military service==
The [[Second World War]] broke out in September 1939, just a month before the start of what would have been Allen's final year at Cambridge. At the time, Allen and two college friends were on an expedition to [[Iceland]], investigating the [[Icelandic language]], and only barely managed to return to Cambridge in time for the beginning of term.{{sfn|Lyons|2006|p=5}}
As a member of the [[Officers' Training Corps]], he was called up in October 1939, and commissioned in May 1940 into the [[Royal Tank Regiment]].{{sfn|Lyons|2006|p=6}} On the strength of his brief experience of Iceland and its language, he was posted to the island, now [[Allied occupation of Iceland|occupied by British forces]], as an intelligence officer and winter warfare instructor.{{sfn|Lyons|2006|p=6}} In the spring of 1942, he was placed in command of a photographic unit of the [[Intelligence Corps (United Kingdom)|Intelligence Corps]], involved in planning the [[Operation Overlord|Allied invasion of Normandy]].{{sfn|Lyons|2006|p=7}} From shortly after [[Normandy landings|D-Day]] in 1944 until the [[Victory in Europe Day|armistice]] of 1945, he served with the [[Second Army (United Kingdom)|British 2nd Army]], including the [[Battle of the Bulge]].{{sfn|Lyons|2006|p=7}}
While awaiting demobilisation in 1945, Allen was tasked with organising the escort of sixteen German generals, including [[Hasso von Manteuffel]], to London to be interrogated.{{sfn|Lyons|2006|p=7}}
==Academic career==
Rather than studying for the third and final year (Part II) of the [[Classical Tripos]], Allen opted to take a 'War BA' and begin doctoral study in 1945, under the philologist [[Arthur James Beattie|A. J. Beattie]]. He submitted his [[Ph.D.]] thesis in 1948 under the title ‘Linguistic problems and their treatment in antiquity’, examined by [[John Brough (orientalist)|John Brough]] of the [[School of Oriental & African Studies]] and [[Peter Noble (academic)|Peter Noble]] of the [[University of Aberdeen]].
Shortly after submitting his Ph.D., Allen was appointed lecturer in [[Phonetics]] at SOAS, a position he held until 1951, when he requested that it be converted into a lectureship in [[Comparative linguistics|Comparative Linguistics]], under which name he held it until 1955.{{sfn|Lyons|2006|p=11}} Throughout 1952, he conducted fieldwork in [[Rajasthan]] into the dialects of the [[Rajasthani languages]], hoping to find data of use in reconstructing [[Proto-Indo-European language|Proto-Indo-European]] phonology, and also conducted important work into the structure of the [[Caucasus|Caucasian]] language [[Abaza language|Abaza]], later described as 'epoch-making'.{{sfn|Lyons|2006|p=14}} A close co-worker during his time at SOAS was [[R. H. Robins]], a noted disciple of [[John Rupert Firth]].{{sfn|Brown|Law|2002|p=18}}
From 1955 until his retirement in 1982, Allen held the position of Professor of Comparative Philology at the University of Cambridge, where he worked closely with [[John Chadwick]].{{sfn|Brown|Law|2002|p=14}} From 1962, he was elected a fellow of [[Selwyn College, Cambridge|Selwyn College]], where he held the post of Director of Studies in German.{{sfn|Lyons|2006|p=17}} He was elected a Fellow of the [[British Academy]] in 1971.
In 1969, along with Michael Black of [[Cambridge University Press]], Allen founded the ''Cambridge Studies in Linguistics'' series of [[Monograph|monographs]]. He was chairman of its editorial board until his retirement from Cambridge in 1982.
He was influential in the development of several important figures in British linguistics, including [[George Hewitt (linguist)|George Hewitt]], [[John Lyons (linguist)|John Lyons]], [[John C. Wells]], and [[Geoffrey Horrocks (linguist)|Geoffrey Horrocks]], who held Allen's former Cambridge position as Professor of Comparative Philology.{{sfn|Brown|Law|2002|pp=20-25}}<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.classics.cam.ac.uk/faculty/staff-bios/academic-research-staff/geoff_horrocks/ |title=Professor Geoff Horrocks |access-date=2012-02-24 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120222082128/http://www.classics.cam.ac.uk/faculty/staff-bios/academic-research-staff/geoff_horrocks/ |archive-date=2012-02-22 |url-status=dead }}</ref> He was also influential in developing linguistics as a distinct discipline in 20th-century Britain, lobbying the General Board of the [[University of Cambridge]] to set up linguistics positions in the 1960s, and in helping to found the section for linguistics (subsequently renamed 'Linguistics and Philology') at the British Academy in 1985.{{sfn|Brown|Law|2002|pp=22-25}} The University of Cambridge has a prize named after him, awarded for distinguished performance by a linguistics undergraduate.<ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.admin.cam.ac.uk/univ/so/2011/chapter12-section2.html#heading2-7 | title=Chapter Xii : Trust Emoluments - Funds, Studentships, Prizes, Lectureships, Etc }}</ref>
==Personal life==
During his time at SOAS, Allen met Aenea McCallum, the editorial secretary of the School’s journal, the ''[[Bulletin of the School of Oriental & African Studies]]'', who had previously studied English and Modern Languages at the University of Aberdeen and served in [[counterintelligence]] during the Second World War. The two were married from 1955 until Aenea's death in 1996.
In 1995, Allen underwent a [[hip replacement]], after which he required at-home care; after Aenea's death, he met Diana Stroud, one of his part-time carers.{{sfn|Lyons|2006|p=22}} The two married in 2002. He had no children.
Allen's younger brother, David (born 1927), was a local government officer with the [[Greater London Council]].
==Selected works== * ''Phonetics in Ancient India'' (1953) * ''On the Linguistic Study of Languages'' (inaugural lecture) (1957) * ''Sandhi'' (1962) * ''Vox Latina'' (1965, 2nd edition 1978) * ''Vox Graeca'' (1968, 3rd edition 1987) * ''Accent and Rhythm'' (1973)
==References== {{reflist}}
==Bibliography== * {{Cite book |last1=Brown |first1=E.K. |title=Linguistics in Britain: Personal Histories |last2=Law |first2=Vivien |publisher=Blackwell |year=2002 |location=Oxford}} * {{Cite journal |last=Lyons |first=Sir John |author-link=John Lyons (linguist) |date=2006 |title=William Sidney Allen: 1918-2004 |url=https://www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/documents/1773/138p003.pdf |journal=Proceedings of the British Academy|volume=138 |pages=3–36}} {{authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Allen, William Sidney}} [[Category:1918 births]] [[Category:2004 deaths]] [[Category:People educated at Christ's Hospital]] [[Category:Alumni of Trinity College, Cambridge]] [[Category:Fellows of Trinity College, Cambridge]] [[Category:Academics of SOAS University of London]] [[Category:Scholars of Ancient Greek]] [[Category:British classical philologists]] [[Category:Linguists of Indo-European languages]] [[Category:Fellows of the British Academy]] [[Category:20th-century British linguists]]