Francisco Villar Liebana facts for kids

Francisco Villar Liébana, born on May 23, 1942, is a Spanish expert in languages. He is a full professor of Indo-European linguistics at the University of Salamanca since 1979. This means he studies how languages like English, Spanish, and Hindi are related and where they came from.

About Francisco Villar Liébana

Francisco Villar Liébana learned a lot from his teacher, Francisco Rodríguez Adrados. Later, he developed his own ideas. He was a professor of Indo-European linguistics at the Complutense University of Madrid from 1967 to 1979. After that, he became a permanent professor at the University of Salamanca in the same field.

What He Studies

Francisco Villar Liébana has done many studies on ancient languages of Spain, called Paleohispanic languages. He focused especially on the Celtiberian language. He helped us understand the Botorrita Bronzes, which are very important writings from the Celtiberian people. He also studied other Celtic languages and helped develop studies on the Tartessian and Lusitanian languages.

He has also helped improve the study of Indo-European languages. He supports the Kurgan hypothesis, which was suggested by Marija Gimbutas. This idea explains how Indo-European languages might have spread. He disagreed with another idea, the Neolithic hypothesis, which was based on archaeology.

His work also looks at how different Indo-European languages are related. He studies how these languages spread across Europe and Asia. He pays special attention to what we learn from studying people's genes and ancient place names in Europe and Western Asia. He even led a team that looked into the origins of Indo-European languages. They studied ancient farmers from the Neolithic period and people from the Mesolithic period.

Among his many books, Los indoeuropeos y los orígenes de Europa. Lenguaje e historia (1991) is very important. It has been translated into many languages and is a key book for studying Indo-European languages today. He also translated some ancient Indian texts into Spanish in 1977-78.

His Books

• Lenguas y pueblos indoeuropeos, Madrid, Istmo, 1971.
• Origen de la flexión nominal indoeuropea, Madrid, Instituto "Antonio de Nebrija", 1974. ISBN: 978-84-00-03988-2.
• Dativo y locativo en el singular de la flexión nominal indoeuropea, Salamanca, Ediciones Universidad de Salamanca, 1981. ISBN: 978-84-7481-146-9.
• Ergatividad, acusatividad y género en la familia lingüística indoeuropea, Salamanca, Ediciones Universidad de Salamanca, 1983. ISBN: 978-84-7481-249-7.
• Los indoeuropeos y los orígenes de Europa. Lenguaje e historia, Madrid, Gredos, 1991 (1996²). ISBN: 978-88-15-12706-8.
• Estudios de celtibérico y de toponimia prerromana, Salamanca, Ediciones Universidad de Salamanca, 1995. ISBN: 978-84-7481-809-3.
• Indoeuropeos y no indoeuropeos en la Hispania prerromana. Las poblaciones y las lenguas prerromanas de Andalucía, Cataluña y Aragón según la información que nos proporciona la toponimia, Salamanca, Ediciones Universidad de Salamanca, 2000. ISBN: 978-84-7800-968-8.
• El IV bronce de Botorrita (Contrebia Belaisca): arqueología y lingüística, Salamanca, Ediciones Universidad de Salamanca, 2001. ISBN: 978-84-7800-875-9.
• Vascos, celtas e indoeuropeos. Genes y lengua (con Blanca M. Prosper), Salamanca, Ediciones Universidad de Salamanca, 2005. ISBN: 978-84-7800-530-7.
• Indoeuropeos, iberos, vascos y sus parientes, Estratigrafía y cronología de las poblaciones prehistóricas, Universidad de Salamanca, 2014. Estudios Filológicos.

See also

In Spanish: Francisco Villar Liébana para niños