William Barnes
#13,317
Most Influential Person Across History
English writer, poet, clergyman, and philologist
William Barnes's AcademicInfluence.com Rankings
Download Badge
Literature
Why Is William Barnes Influential?
(Suggest an Edit or Addition)According to Wikipedia, William Barnes was an English polymath, writer, poet, philologist, priest, mathematician, engraving artist and inventor. He wrote over 800 poems, some in Dorset dialect, and much other work, including a comprehensive English grammar quoting from more than 70 different languages. A linguistic purist, Barnes strongly advocated against borrowing foreign words into English, and instead supported the use and proliferation of "strong old Anglo-Saxon speech".
