E. Fernando Nava L.

Enrique Fernando Nava López (born 30 May 1959) is a Mexican anthropologist and linguist specialising in Purépecha (Tarascan) and other indigenous languages of Mexico. He was the first director-general of the National Institute of Indigenous Languages (INALI) from 2004 to 2010 and has been a member of the Mexican Academy of Language since 2017.

Life and work Fernando Nava López was born in León, Guanajuato, on 30 May 1959. He earned a bachelor's degree in linguistics from the National School of Anthropology and History (ENAH) in Mexico City and a master's from the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) and El Colegio de México. In 2004 he received a doctorate in anthropology from the ENAH and the UNAM. He also studied music at the National Conservatory and at the UNAM's before switching to linguistics and anthropology.

He has taught at the National School of Folkloric Dance of the National Institute of Fine Arts (INBA), the National School of Music, the (CIESAS), and the in Morelia, Michoacán. the INBA's National Centre for Musical Research, Documentation and Information, and the Colegio de México's Centre for Linguistic and Literary Studies. In 2000, he and Guadalupe Hernández Dimas published Jánhaskapani juchar anapu jimpo, the first grammar of Purépecha written in that language.

In 2004, the administration of President Vicente Fox appointed him to serve as first director-general of the National Institute of Indigenous Languages (INALI), where he remained until 2010.