D. B. Gregor (1909–1995)

"A classicist by training and profession, he was fluent in over 20 languages and read many others. He used Esperanto - the best-known of the world's auxiliary languages, designed to solve problems of international communication - in literary translation and original writing, and was one of the last to correspond in Esperanto's predecessor, Volapuk.

He devoted much of his life, however, to the study of the minority languages and dialects of northern Italy, and was almost certainly the last speaker of all six Celtic languages. He was hero-worshipped in Friuli, a region in north-eastern Italy, for his championing of its language and its culture; but his modesty and the relative obscurity of his position as a schoolmaster combined to ensure that he never received in Britain the wider academic recognition he deserved." Married to Graziella Gregor.