Rudolf de Rijk

Who was Rudolf de Rijk?

Rudolf P. G. de Rijk was a Dutch linguist, a specialist in Basque language.

He received his Ph.D. at Massachusetts Institute of Technology with the thesis Studies in Basque Syntax: Relative Clauses, under the direction of Kenneth L. Hale. His thesis had an impact of bringing the Basque language to the attention of generative syntacticians.

He taught briefly at the University of Chicago and then, until his retirement in 2002, at Leiden University. His De Lingua Vasconum: Selected Writings were published in 1998 as supplement XLIII to the Anuario del Seminario de Filologa Vasca "Julio de Urquijo". He was an honorary member of the Basque Language Academy.

On November 29, 2002, the University of the Basque Country awarded him an honorary doctorate, citing him as el vascólogo más importante de la comunidad lingüística internacional and presenting him with a Festschrift containing articles by 42 authors whose work was informed by his own.

His life's work is the 1400-page descriptive grammar of Standard Basque: Standard Basque: A Progressive Grammar.