Carl Darling Buck

Carl Darling Buck (October 2, 1866 – February 8, 1955) was an American philologist.

Biography Buck was born on October 2, 1866, in Maine (either in Bucksport or in Orland ).

He graduated from Yale in 1886, was a graduate student there for three years, and studied at the American School of Classical Studies in Athens from 1887 to 1889, and in Leipzig from 1889–1892.

In 1892 he became professor of Sanskrit and Indo-European comparative philology at the University of Chicago, and was later named Martin A. Ryerson Distinguished Service Professor of Comparative Philology.

In his early career, he concentrated on the Italic dialects, including among his published work, Der Vocalismus der oskischen Sprache (1892), The Oscan-Umbrian Verb-System (1895), and Grammar of Oscan and Umbrian, with a collection of inscriptions and a glossary (1904), and a précis of the Italic languages in Johnson's Universal Cyclopaedia. He collaborated with W.G. Hale in the preparation of A Latin Grammar (1903).

Later, he worked extensively on the Greek dialects, publishing: The Greek dialects; grammar, selected inscriptions, glossary (1910), Comparative grammar of Greek and Latin (1933); and on more general Indo-European issues.

His Dictionary of Selected Synonyms in the Principal Indo-European Languages was called by Calvert Watkins "a treasure house of words, word origins, expressions, and ideas..., a monument to a great American scholar".

Buck was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1921 and the American Philosophical Society in 1923.

Upon his death, The New York Times reported that Buck spoke thirty languages. Many of Buck's books went through multiple editions, and several are still in print.