Willem Adelaar

Willem F. H. Adelaar (born 1948 at The Hague) is a Dutch linguist specializing in Native American languages, specially those of the Andes. He is a Professor of Indigenous American Linguistics and Cultures at Leiden University.

He has written broadly about the Quechua, Aymara and Mapuche languages. His main works are his 2004 The languages of the Andes, an overview of the indigenous languages of the Andean region, which is considered a "classic" in the field.

In 2014, he was made Knight of the Order of the Netherlands Lion in recognition of his scientific achievements. He also holds an honorary doctorate from the Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos of Lima, Peru. In 2019, he was elected a member of Academia Europaea.

Selected publications regional editor for South America

Linguistic and anthropological studies with special emphasis on the languages and cultures of the Andean-Amazonian border area