Alexander Murray (linguist)

Alexander Murray FRSE FSA (Scot) (1775 – 15 April 1813) was a Scottish minister, philologist, linguist and professor of Hebrew and Semitic languages at Edinburgh University (1812).

He translated Arnold Drackenburg's German lectures on Roman authors, and when he visited Dumfries with his version in 1794, after unsuccessfully offering it to two separate publishers, he met Robert Burns, who gave him advice.

His parish minister, J. G. Maitland of Minnigaff, gave him an introductory letter to Principal George Husband Baird, which led to an examination.

In July 1812, after a sharp contest involving some bitterness of feeling, Murray was appointed professor of oriental languages in Edinburgh University, with support from Salt and Constable.

[2] Through Leyden, Murray became a contributor to the Scots Magazine, and he edited the seven numbers of that periodical from February 1802, inserting verses of his own under the signatures "B",' "X", or "Z".

His major work, the History of the European Languages, or Researches into the Affinities of the Teutonic, Greek, Celtic, Slavonic, and Indian Nations, was edited by David Scot, and published, with a detailed Life, by Sir Henry Wellwood Moncreiff, in 2 vols., 1823.

; she survived about twelve years, supported by a government pension of £80, which had been granted to her in return for Murray's translation of the Abyssinian letter.

The daughter died of consumption in 1821, and the son, who was practically adopted by Archibald Constable, qualified for a ship surgeon, and was drowned on his first voyage.