R. G. Latham

Robert Gordon Latham (1812–1888) was an English philologist, ethnologist and physician. Educated at Eton and King's College, Cambridge, where he became a fellow, he studied languages in Germany and Scandinavia and in 1839 became professor of English language and literature at University College London, while also qualifying in medicine. His book The English Language (1841) went through many enlarged editions, and he produced a revised edition of Johnson's Dictionary. He wrote extensively on the classification of the races and languages of mankind, and argued, against most scholars, that the Indo-European languages had originated in Europe.