Willem F. H. Adelaar (born 1948 at

The Hague The Hague ( ; nl, Den Haag or ) is a city and municipality of the Netherlands, situated on the west coast facing the North Sea. The Hague is the country's administrative centre and its seat of government, and while the official capital o ...

) is a

Dutch Dutch commonly refers to: * Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands * Dutch people () * Dutch language () Dutch may also refer to: Places * Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States * Pennsylvania Dutch Country People E ...

linguist specializing in

Native American languages Over a thousand indigenous languages are spoken by the Indigenous peoples of the Americas. These languages cannot all be demonstrated to be related to each other and are classified into a hundred or so language families (including a large numbe ...

, specially those of the

Andes The Andes, Andes Mountains or Andean Mountains (; ) are the longest continental mountain range in the world, forming a continuous highland along the western edge of South America. The range is long, wide (widest between 18°S – 20°S ...

. He is Professor of indigenous American Linguistics and Cultures at

Leiden University Leiden University (abbreviated as ''LEI''; nl, Universiteit Leiden) is a public research university in Leiden, Netherlands. The university was founded as a Protestant university in 1575 by William, Prince of Orange, as a reward to the city o ...

. He has written broadly about the Quechua, Aymara and

Mapuche The Mapuche ( (Mapuche & Spanish: )) are a group of indigenous inhabitants of south-central Chile and southwestern Argentina, including parts of Patagonia. The collective term refers to a wide-ranging ethnicity composed of various groups who s ...

languages. His main works are his 2004 ''The languages of the Andes'', an overview of the indigenous languages of the Andean region, which is considered a "classic" in the field. His Dutch language publications about the history and religion of the Inca and translations of Quechua chronicles have met with a broad public. A specialist on minority languages and language endangerment, he is also editor of

UNESCO The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a List of specialized agencies of the United Nations, specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) aimed at promoting world peace and security through international coope ...

's "''Interactive Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger''". In 1994 he was given a newly created Professorial chair in "Languages and Cultures of Native America" at the University of Leiden. He is noted for his belief that the linguistic diversity of the Americas suggests a deeper history of population than the standard account of the

settlement of the Americas The settlement of the Americas began when Paleolithic hunter-gatherers entered North America from the North Asian Mammoth steppe via the Beringia land bridge, which had formed between northeastern Siberia and western Alaska due to the lowering o ...

. In 2014 he was made Knight of the

Order of the Netherlands Lion The Order of the Netherlands Lion, also known as the Order of the Lion of the Netherlands ( nl, De Orde van de Nederlandse Leeuw, french: L'Ordre du Lion Néerlandais) is a Dutch order of chivalry founded by King William I of the Netherlands on ...

in recognition of his scientific achievements. He also holds an honorary doctorate at the Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos of

Lima Lima ( ; ), originally founded as Ciudad de Los Reyes (City of The Kings) is the capital and the largest city of Peru. It is located in the valleys of the Chillón, Rímac and Lurín Rivers, in the desert zone of the central coastal part of ...

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. In 2019 he was elected a member of

Academia Europaea The Academia Europaea is a pan-European Academy of Humanities, Letters, Law, and Sciences. The Academia was founded in 1988 as a functioning Europe-wide Academy that encompasses all fields of scholarly inquiry. It acts as co-ordinator of Europea ...

Selected publications

*2009 ''Unesco Interactive Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger''. (regional editor for South America). Paris:

. *2007 ''The Languages of the Andes''. With the collaboration of P.C. Muysken. Cambridge language survey. Cambridge University Press. Revised edition. *2007 The importance of

toponymy Toponymy, toponymics, or toponomastics is the study of ''toponyms'' ( proper names of places, also known as place names and geographic names), including their origins, meanings, usage and types. Toponym is the general term for a proper name of ...

, family names and historical documentation for the study of disappearing and recently extinct languages in the Andean region. In: L. Wetzels (ed.), ''Language Endangerment and Endangered Languages''. Linguistic and anthropological studies with special emphasis on the languages and cultures of the Andean-Amazonian border area, pp. 325–331. Leiden: CNWS. *2007 Ensayo de clasificación del katawixí dentro del conjunto harakmbut-katukina. In: A. Romero Figueroa, A. Fernández Garay and A. Corbera Mori (eds.), ''Lenguas indígenas de América del Sur: Estudios descriptivo-tipológicos y sus contribuciones para la lingüística teórica'', pp. 159–169. Caracas: Universidad Católica Andrés Bello. *2006 The Quechua impact in the Amuesha language, an

Arawak The Arawak are a group of indigenous peoples of northern South America and of the Caribbean. Specifically, the term "Arawak" has been applied at various times to the Lokono of South America and the Taíno, who historically lived in the Greate ...

language of the Peruvian Amazon. In: A.Y. Aikhenvald & R.M.W. Dixon (eds.), ''Grammars in Contact. A Cross-Linguistic Typology'', pp. 290–312. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press *1995 Raíces lingüísticas del Quichua de Santiago del Estero. In: A. Fernández Garay & J.P. Viegas Barros (eds.), ''Actas de las Segundas Jornadas de Lingüística Aborigen'', pp. 25–50. Universidad de Buenos Aires. *1994 La procedencia dialectal del manuscrito de Huarochirí en base a sus características lingüísticas. ''Revista Andina, 12:1'', pp. 137–154. Cusco: Centro "Bartolomé de Las Casas". *1987 ''Morfología del quechua de Pacaraos''. Lima: Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos. *1987 Aymarismos en el quechua de Puno. ''Indiana,'' 11, pp. 223‑231. Berlin: Gebr. Mann Verlag. *1982 ''Léxico del quechua de Pacaraos''. Lima: Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos: Centro de Investigación de Linguística Aplicada: Documento de Trabajo No. 45.

References

External links

Languages of the Andes
Electronic book of ''Languages of the Andes''. Cambridge Books Online.
MA Indian American Studies
Programme Director of Indian American Studies
Leiden University Centre for Linguistics
Homepage at University Leiden {{DEFAULTSORT:Adelaar, Willem F. 1948 births Living people Linguists from the Netherlands Scientists from The Hague University of Amsterdam alumni Leiden University faculty Paleolinguists Linguists of Aymaran languages Linguists of Quechuan languages Linguists of indigenous languages of South America Members of Academia Europaea