12 Facts About Henry Sweet

Henry Sweet was an English philologist, phonetician and grammarian.

Henry Sweet was educated at Bruce Castle School and King's College School, London.

Henry Sweet neglected his formal academic coursework, concentrating instead on pursuing excellence in his private studies.

Henry Sweet graduated in 1873, nearly thirty years old, with a fourth-class degree in literae humaniores.

In 1877, Henry Sweet published A Handbook of Phonetics, which attracted international attention among scholars and teachers of English in Europe.

Henry Sweet followed up with the Elementarbuch des gesprochenen Englisch, which was adapted as A Primer of Spoken English.

In 1901, Henry Sweet was made reader in phonetics at Oxford.

Henry Sweet was closely involved in the early history of the Oxford English Dictionary.

Henry Sweet had done poorly as a student at Oxford, he had annoyed many people through bluntness, and he failed to make every effort to gather official support.

Henry Sweet died on 30 April 1912 in Oxford, of pernicious anemia; he left no children.

Henry Sweet has retained a reputation as "the man who taught Europe phonetics".

Henry Sweet's work established an applied linguistics tradition in language teaching which has continued without interruption to the present day.