November 28, 2017

Sir Monier Williams and Frauenzimmer



Dr. Martin Delhey, an uncompromising Buddhologist and philologist, has been pointing out that Sir Monier Williams, in one of the earlier editions of the Sanskrit-English dictionary, translated the German word Frauenzimmer as “woman’s room.” Note that Frauenzimmer means “woman” and not “woman’s room.” The exact entry under which he did was, however, not known to me. But I now see that one of the instances in which the PW employs the German word Frauenzimmer is under the entry aṅgana. Indeed, the edition of the MW I use no longer contains the wrong translation, and it simply states “any woman or female.”


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