Having held appointments at the
University of Douai and the
University of Lille, Henry was appointed professor of
Sanskrit and
comparative grammar at the
University of Paris. A prolific and versatile writer, he is probably best known by the English translations of his ''Précis de Grammaire comparée de l'anglais et de l'allemand
("Handbook of Comparative Grammar of English and German") and Précis de Grammaire comparée du Grec et du Latin'' ("Handbook of Comparative Grammar of Greek and Latin"). Important works by him on India and Indian languages are: •
Manuel pour étudier le Sanscrit védique ("Manual for the Study of Vedic Sanskrit", with Abel Bergaigne, 1890) •
Éléments de Sanscrit classique ("Elements of Classical Sanskrit", 1902) •
Précis de grammaire Pâlie ("Handbook of Pali Grammar", 1904) • ''Les Littératures de l'Inde: sanscrit, Pâli, Prâcrit'' ("The Literature of India: Sanskrit, Pali, and Prakrit"; 1904) • ''La Magie dans l'Inde antique'' ("Magic in Ancient India", 1904) •
Le Parsisme ("Parsism", 1905) • ''L'Agniṣṭoma'' ("Angiṣṭoma: A Complete Description of the Normal Form of Soma Sacrifice in the Vedic Religion", with
Willem Caland, 1906) Native American languages (such as
Siglit,
Quechua, and
Greenlandic), as well as the
minority languages of
France capture his attention, writing
Lexique Étymologique du Breton moderne ("Etymological Vocabulary of Modern Breton") on
Breton and
Le Dialecte Alaman de Colmar ("The Alemannic Dialect of Colmar") on
Alemannic German.
Le Langage martien ("The Martian Language") contains the discussion of some 40 phrases (amounting to about 500 words), which
Hélène Smith (a well-known
spiritualist medium of
Geneva), while on a purported hypnotic visit to the planet
Mars, learned, repeated, and even wrote down during her trance as specimens of a language spoken there, explained to her by a disembodied interpreter. ==References==