A BRILLIANT SON OF THE MANSE.

Press, Volume LII, Issue 15512, 12 February 1916, Page 6

A BRILLIANT SON OF THE MANSE.

' DR. HAROLD WILLIAMS. | We take the ; following' sketch of a brilliant .Xcw Zcalander.from the columns of "Life"- '•• . 'He doesn't know . how lie acquired the habit of learning languages. It was a kind of mania like stamp collccting (writes . AVilliam Moore from London), and' he. goes on "to; explain that: MiHarold AVi'.liarns, war, correspondent at Petrograd for the London: ''Daily Chronicle," who knows the majority of European and Polynesian languages, with a few Asiatic ones thrown in, began with Latin and French, which he, studied at tho High School, Christchurch, Nov Zealand. Tho ,peculiarities of the Maori tongue were easily grasped, and then be attacked German, Greek, Italian, and Spanish. . A passion for Polynesian languages, most of which he learnt from the translations issued by tho British and. Foreign Bible Society, led to the publication in tho. journal of. the ".Polynesian. Society of. a short dictionary of the language of Niuc or Savage Island. . This Was accomplished while ho was a . student at the Timaru High School,'whence he . proceeded to the University College at Auckland.. It was tin- dream of his life to spend a . few years in the .-South Spjs to increase his knowledge of the Polynesian languages, but fate changed his course to the other side of the world, where he started to learn Malay and Sanscrit. He was now studying at the University of Berlin, where ho took the degree ■of -doctor of philosophy, on the strength of a. dissertation on the grammar of Iloko, one of the languages of the Philinpine Islands. Tt was owing to the failure of a plan for joining an expedition to these islands that, the philologist at last turned his at'tention_ to journalism. While in Berlin. Mr "Williams became conversant with the language and literature of Russia, ana at the end of 190t He went to that country as correspondent of the. '.'Manchester Guardian." With the exception of one year spent in Constantinople as correspondent of the '"Morning Post," "he has, remained there ever since. . His impressions of the life of the Russian people, in town and country, arc sunvnarised in his well-known volume. "Russia and the Russians." .His'next work will be an account of the peoples of the Russian Empire, his. knowledge of the languages of the. races that make up that Empire being of considerable value in writing such a volume. Of the languages spoken in Russia. Mr Williams knows Russian, Polish. Finnish. Esthonian. Luthuanian, Lettish, Armenian, Georgian, and Tartar. Asked oncc if be could give the total number of languages he knew. Mr Williams replied that he had lost countHo has kindly informed me, through correspondence, that he can read all the languages of Europe except Albanian, Basque, and some of the more obscure of the language® of European Russia. He can read Welsh, admits he has only a slight knowledge of Irish, but can claim a. certain amount of Arabic. Hebrew, pnd Persian. Mr Williams s brother Aubrey, "who is now fighting with the New Zealanders at the Dardanelles, started life in t-he drarvery business, first of all in New Zealand, and afterwards in London, New York, and San Francisco, from which hp was shaken out by the earthquake. Subsequently ho -went to Petrograd, where be ably assisted his brother as a irar correspondent during the earlr stages, of the w?r. Mr Williams i s a son of th» "Rev! W. J. Williams fNfetbodist>. of Snmner. NVw Zealand. Two of his brothers are at the front.