Frederik Herman Henri (Frits) Kortlandt (born 19 June 1946) is a Dutch former professor of descriptive and comparative

linguistics Linguistics is the science, scientific study of human language. It is called a scientific study because it entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise analysis of all aspects of language, particularly its nature and structure ...

at Leiden University in the

Netherlands ) , anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau") , image_map = , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands , established_title = Before independence , established_date = Spanish Netherl ...

. He writes on Baltic and

Slavic languages The Slavic languages, also known as the Slavonic languages, are Indo-European languages spoken primarily by the Slavic peoples and their descendants. They are thought to descend from a proto-language called Proto-Slavic, spoken during the ...

, the

Indo-European languages The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the overwhelming majority of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and the northern Indian subcontinent. Some European languages of this family, English, French, Portuguese, Russian, Dutc ...

in general, and

Proto-Indo-European Proto-Indo-European (PIE) is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European language family. Its proposed features have been derived by linguistic reconstruction from documented Indo-European languages. No direct record of Proto-Indo- ...

, though he has also published studies of languages in other language families. He has also studied ways to associate language families into super-groups such as controversial Indo-Uralic.

Biography

Kortlandt was born on 19 June 1946 in

Utrecht Utrecht ( , , ) is the fourth-largest city and a municipality of the Netherlands, capital and most populous city of the province of Utrecht. It is located in the eastern corner of the Randstad conurbation, in the very centre of mainland Net ...

. Kortlandt, along with

George van Driem George "Sjors" van Driem (born 1957) is a Dutch linguist associated with the University of Bern, where he is the chair of Historical Linguistics and directs the Linguistics Institute. Education * Leiden University, 1983–1987 (PhD, ''A Gramma ...

and a few other colleagues, is one of the proponents of the Leiden School of linguistics, which describes language in terms of a meme or benign parasite. Kortlandt holds five degrees from the

University of Amsterdam The University of Amsterdam (abbreviated as UvA, nl, Universiteit van Amsterdam) is a public research university located in Amsterdam, Netherlands. The UvA is one of two large, publicly funded research universities in the city, the other being ...

: * B.A., 1967, Slavic Linguistics and Literature * B.A., 1967, mathematics and

economics Economics () is the social science that studies the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. Economics focuses on the behaviour and interactions of economic agents and how economies work. Microeconomics analyzes ...

* M.A., 1969, Slavic linguistics * M.A., 1970, mathematical economics * Ph.D., 1972, mathematical linguistics He obtained his PhD under Carl Lodewijk Ebeling with a thesis titled: "Modelling the phoneme : new trends in East European phonemic theory". Kortlandt was a professor of Slavic Languages at Leiden University between 1975 and 2011. Kortlandt has been a member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences since 1986 and is a 1997

Spinozapremie The Spinoza Prize ( nl, Spinozapremie) is an annual award of 2.5 million euro, to be spent on new research given by the Dutch Research Council (NWO). The award is the highest scientific award in the Netherlands. It is named after the philosopher ...

laureate. In 2007, he composed a version of

Schleicher's fable Schleicher's fable is a text composed in a reconstructed version of the Proto-Indo-European (PIE) language, published by August Schleicher in 1868. Schleicher was the first scholar to compose a text in PIE. The fable is entitled ("The Sheep weand ...

, a story written in a hypothetical, reconstructed

, which differs radically from all previous versions.

References

External links

Frederik Kortlandt: Bibliography
1946 births Living people Writers from Utrecht (city) Linguists from the Netherlands Linguists of Indo-European languages Balticists Slavists Paleolinguists Linguists of Indo-Uralic languages Members of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences University of Amsterdam alumni Academic staff of Leiden University Spinoza Prize winners {{netherlands-linguist-stub