Robert S. P. Beekes (1937–2017)
Author of Comparative Indo-European Linguistics: An Introduction
About the Author
Robert S.P. Beekes (Ph.D. 1969) is Professor emeritus of Comparative Indo-European Linguistics at Leiden University. His publications include Comparative Indo-European linguistics: An Introduction (1995) and the Etymological Dictionary of Greek (2010).
Works by Robert S. P. Beekes
Associated Works
Bono Homini Donum : Essays in Historical Linguistics in Memory of J. Alexander Kerns (1981) — Contributor — 6 copies
Evidence and Counter-evidence : Essays in Honour of Frederik Kortlandt. Vol. 1, Balto-Slavic and Indo-European… (2008) — Contributor — 3 copies
Language Contact: Substratum, Superstratum, Adstratum In Germanic Languages. (Amsterdamer Beiträge zur… (2000) — Contributor — 1 copy
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Canonical name
- Beekes, Robert S. P.
- Legal name
- Beekes, Robert Stephen Paul
- Birthdate
- 1937-09-02
- Date of death
- 2017-09-21
- Gender
- male
- Nationality
- Netherlands
- Short biography
- Emeritus Professor of Comparative Indo-European Linguistics at the University of Leiden and the author of many books about Proto-Indo-European, the reconstructed parent language of most of the European languages and of the languages of Central Asia and India (includes many of the languages of Iran, India, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh). One of his more well-known books is Comparative Indo-European Linguistics: An Introduction, a standard handbook on the Proto-Indo-European language. It treats the area of linguistic reconstruction thoroughly, but also features cultural reconstruction and comparative linguistic methods in general.
Professor Beekes is also a leading authority on the Etruscan language and co-author with L. B. Van der Meer of De Etrusken Spreken Muiderberg: Coutinho, 1991. He advocates the oriental origin theory for the Etruscans.
Currently, Beekes is working at Pre-Greek, the (non-Indo-European) language that was spoken in Greece before Greek came in, possibly around 2000 BC. Since this language was not written, Beekes gets his information from words in Classical Greek that clearly show a non-Greek structure and development.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_S...
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Reviews
Vergelijkende taalwetenschap : een inleiding in de… by R. S. P. Beekes
A book on Indo-European comparing philology. Very interesting. It gives a bit of chronological insight in the discovering of the emerging of European languages and cultures. It also contains notations in the world wide known notation to describe sounds. So it is not an EASY read, but it sure is very interesting!
Beekes presents an interesting, if in some places controversial, overview of the Indo-European languages and their comparative grammar. The book is divided into two parts. The first part deals with a general introduction to language change and linguistic reconstruction with examples selected from the history of the Indo-European language family, and the second part presents a general sketch of the comparative grammar of Proto-Indo-European in the Leiden school of PIE reconstruction. Some of the data synthesis as presented is idiosyncratic to the communis opinio outside of the Leiden school (e.g. the Glottalic Theory, Winter's Law, etc.), but the book still has a broader usefulness outside of their model because of its systematic presentation of the various sound-correspondences and wealth of comparative data assembled therein. The book also contains excellent illustrations and text-samples of various old IE languages in its appendix. Also of interest within are concise sketches of the historical phonologies of English and Albanian from PIE to present day.… (more)
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- Works
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- Also by
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- Members
- 172
- Popularity
- #124,308
- Rating
- 3.8
- Reviews
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- ISBNs
- 19
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