Edmund Castell facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Edmund Castell
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Edmund Castell
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| Born | 1606 |
| Died | 1685 (aged 78–79) |
Edmund Castell (1606–1686) was a very smart English scholar. He spent many years studying languages from the Middle East. People who study these languages are sometimes called orientalists.
Contents
Who Was Edmund Castell?
Edmund Castell was born in 1606 in a place called Tadlow, England. When he was 15, he went to Emmanuel College, Cambridge to study. He earned his first degree in 1625 and a master's degree in 1628. Later, in 1666, he became a professor of Arabic at Cambridge University. He moved to St John's College, Cambridge in 1671 because it had a very valuable library.
His Amazing Dictionary
Edmund Castell's biggest project was a huge dictionary. It was called the Lexicon Heptaglotton. This long name means "Dictionary of Seven Languages." It included Hebrew, Chaldaic, Syriac, Samaritan, Ethiopic, Arabic, and Persian.
Years of Hard Work
This amazing dictionary took him 18 years to finish! He said he worked 16 to 18 hours every day. He even had 14 helpers working with him. He spent a lot of his own money, about £12,000, on this project. This was a huge amount of money back then. Sadly, after all that work, not many people bought the dictionary. This meant he lost a lot of money.
Facing Challenges
By 1667, Edmund Castell faced some money problems. He had promised to pay his brother's debts, and when his brother couldn't pay, Edmund was responsible. This led to him being held in a kind of debtors' prison.
Help from the King
Luckily, he found a way out. He wrote a book of poems and dedicated it to the king. The king was pleased and helped him. Edmund was then given important jobs. He became a prebendary at Canterbury Cathedral. He also kept his job as a professor of Arabic at Cambridge.
Other Important Work
Before he started his big dictionary, Castell helped another scholar, Dr. Brian Walton. They worked together on a special Bible called the Polyglott Bible. This Bible also had different languages in it.
His Later Life and Legacy
Edmund Castell passed away in 1686 in a town called Higham Gobion, where he was a rector (a type of church leader). He was buried there. He left all his important handwritten notes and books to the University of Cambridge.
Later, other scholars recognized his hard work. Parts of his Lexicon were published separately. For example, the Syriac part was published in 1788. The Hebrew part was published between 1790 and 1792. These new editions showed how important and smart Edmund Castell's work was.
