Paul Thordersen Xwitaw

Paul Thordersen Xwítáw (1786-1853) was a theologist and a professor of Sanskrit, and was Xríwizáj Canðra's successor at Xrirampur University. Xwítáw was the son of Þorður Jónsson frá Hvítá and his Bán̊glá wife. He was first educated by the missionaries of the Lutheran Missionary Society of Frederiksnagore, who educated him as a Lutheran priest.

Being trilingual in Danish, Icelandic, and Bengali, he developed a keen interest on the languages of East India at an early age. In his father's footstep, he joined the Kongelige Dansk Østindiske Selskab (Royal Danish East Indian Society) in 1804. That same year, after the publication of "Lexicon Sanscritum, Latinum, Danicum et Germanicum" by his father Þorður Jónsson frá Hvítá and coauthor Xríwizáj Canðra, Xwítáw began his work on a companion version, "Lexicon Sanscritum, Latinum, Anglicum, Britannicum et Gallicum", which was later published in 1808. Ten years later, he published the "Bengalsk-Rigsmaal og Rigsmaal-Bengalsk Ordbog". Both books used the transcription system used in the "Lexicon Sanscritum, Latinum, Danicum et Germanicum", and this inevitably came to set the standard of the Transcription of Indian Writing Systems in the scholarly world. The name Xwítáw is in fact the Indianized transcription of Hvítá.

After Xríwizáj Canðra died in 1828, Paul Thordersen Xwítáw succeeded as professor of Sanskrit in Xrirampur University.