Bleek, WILHELM

Bleek, WILHELM, philologist, son of the preceding, born in Berlin, 8th March 1827, studied there and at Bonu, and accompanied Baikie's Niger expedition in 1854, but was compelled by ill health to turn back at Fernando Po. He joined Bishop Colenso at Natal in 1855, and after eighteen months' study of the Kaffirs, settled at Cape Town, where in 1861 he was appointed keeper of the Grey Library. Here he was engaged chiefly in philological investigations until his death, 17th August 1875. His writings on Bushman and Hottentot philology and folklore are important, and the Handbook of African, Australian, and Polynesian Philology (3 vols. 1858-63) shows remarkable erudition; but his most valuable work is the unfinished Comparative Grammar of South African Languages (parts i. and ii. 1862-69), in which the position of the great Bantu family is assigned.