Kenneth Hurlstone Jackson (born Croydon 1909, died 1991) was an English linguist and a translator who specialised in the Brythonic languages. He demonstrated how the text of the Ulster Cycle of tales, written down around 1100, preserves an oral tradition of some six centuries earlier and reflects Celtic Irish society of the third and fourth century AD. His Celtic Miscellany is a popular standard.

Publications

• Kenneth Hurlstone Jackson (1953). Language and history in early Britain: A chronological survey of the Brittonic languages, first to twelfth century A.D., Edinburgh: University of Edinburgh Press.
• —— (1955). Contributions to the study of Manx phonology, University of Edinburgh Linguistic Survey of Scotland Series.
• —— (1959). "The Arthur of History" Arthurian Literature in the Middle Ages, Oxford: Clarendon Press. ISBN 0198112881.
• —— (1959). "Arthur in Early Welsh Verse" Arthurian Literature in the Middle Ages, Oxford: Clarendon Press.
• —— (1961). "The international popular tale and early Welsh tradition" The Gregynog Lectures, 1961, Cardiff: University of Wales Press.
• —— (1964). The oldest Irish tradition: A window on the Iron Age, Cambridge: University Press. Reprinted 1999.
• —— (1969). The Gododdin: The Oldest Scottish poem, Edinburgh:University Press.
• —— (1972, etc.). A Celtic Miscellany : Translations from the Celtic Literature, Penguin Paperback. ISBN 0140442472. Poetry and prose from six Celtic languages, Welsh, Irish and Scottish Gaelic, Cornish, Breton and Manx.

1909 births | 1991 deaths | Celticists | English linguists | Historical linguists | Londoners | Phonologists

Kenneth Jackson