a Scottish intellectual interested in linguistic problems. Originally from Aberdeen, he later worked as a schoolteacher in Oxford in collaboration with John Wilkins, although the two parted company intellectually in 1659. Dalgarno was the author of Didascalocophus or the Deaf and Dumb man's tutor (1680), which proposed a totally new linguistic system for use by deaf mutes. The system is still used in the United States.
