Ernst Windisch

Who was Ernst Windisch?

Ernst Wilhelm Oskar Windisch was a German scholar and Celticist. He was a son-in-law to economist Wilhelm Roscher.

He is known as an Indo-Europeanist. He was also a friend of the young Friedrich Nietzsche.

In 1867 he obtained his PhD in classical philology at the University of Leipzig, afterwards remaining in Leipzig as a teacher at the "Thomasschule". In the meantime, he received his habilitation in Sanskrit and comparative linguistics at the university.

In 1870–71 he worked as a staff member of the Indian Office Library in London. Later on, he became a professor at the University of Leipzig, where in 1895/96 he served as rector. From 1883 to 1918, he was a member of the Sächsische Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Leipzig.