Charles Kraitsir

Charles Kraitsir (born Károly Krajtsir, 28 January 1804 in Szomolnok, Hungary (today Smolník, Slovakia) – 7 May 1860 in Morrisania, New York) was a Hungarian-American philologist of Polish descent.

Biography

He graduated at Pest with a degree in medicine in 1828, and in 1831 went to Poland and took an active part in the November Uprising. He emigrated to the United States in 1833 with the intention of founding a Polish colony, and in 1837/8 he established an academy at Ellicott's Mills, Maryland. Subsequently he resided in Washington, D.C., and in 1841/2 was principal of the state academy of Maryland, Charlotte's Hall. From 1842 until 1844, he delivered lectures in Boston on philology, and established a school there.

In 1848 he went to Europe, but afterward returned to Boston, and in 1851 came to New York State and passed his last years in Morrisania, engaged in literary pursuits.

Literary works

• The Poles in the United States (Philadelphia, 1836/7)
• First Book of English
• Significance of the Alphabet (Boston, 1846)
• Glossology, being a Treatise on the Nature of Language and on the Language of Nature (New York, 1852)

Notes

References

•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Wilson, James Grant; Fiske, John, eds. (1892). "Kraitsir, Charles". Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography. New York: D. Appleton.