Dirk Boutkan was born in Tilburg in 1964. In 1982, he came to Leiden to study Dutch, in which he specialized on linguistics. Besides, he studied Indo-European linguistics with prof. Beekes and prof. Kortlandt, and graduated in this field, too. From 1990 to 1994, he was employed as an assistant to the chair of Comparative Linguistics, while writing his dissertation on The Germanic 'Auslautgesetze' (published in 1995 in Rodopi, Amsterdam/Atlanta). In the department of Comparative Linguistics, he became the regular teacher for Old Germanic languages, teaching Gothic, Old Frisian, Old High German, Old Saxon, Middle Dutch and Old English. He was a skilled and beloved teacher, who managed to teach Old Germanic in an inspiring way both to students of Indo-European and to interested laymen. In fact, he also used his skills outside the university walls, teaching courses in Public Relations for private companies.

Having received his doctorate in 1994, Boutkan was engaged until 1997 in writing an Etymological Dictionary of Old Frisian, more specifically the language of the First Riustringer Manuscript; the result of this work can be consulted on the internet site of the Indo-European Etymological Dictionary. A printed version of his etymological dictionary will be published posthumously. In the same period, he wrote the first complete grammar of a single Old Frisian manuscript, which was published in 1996: A Concise Grammar of the Old Frisian dialect of the First Riustring Manuscript (= Nowele Supplement volume, nr. 16, Odense University Press). In 1996 also appeared a short descriptive grammar of his native dialect of Tilburg, which he wrote together with his Leiden colleague Maarten Kossmann: Het stadsdialect van Tilburg. Klank- en vormleer (= Cahiers van het P.J.Meertens-Instituut, nr. 7, Amsterdam).

In the years following his promotion, Boutkan published an increasing number of interesting and innovative articles in various linguistic journals, in which he focused on two points of research: Old Frisian philology, and the detection of pre-Germanic substratum elements in the vocabulary and morphology of the Germanic languages. The latter subject led him to edit in 2000, together with A. Quak, a collection of papers by various linguists called Language contact. Substratum, Superstratum, Adstratum in Germanic Languages (Amsterdamer Beiträge zur älteren Germanistik 54). He also expounded his views on pre-Germanic elements at various scholarly meetings. In 1999, he became chairman of the board of the Kiliaan foundation, which co-ordinates the work on the new Etymological Dictionary of Dutch (Etymologisch woordenboek van het Nederlands), which is currently in progress.

Boutkan remained in service as a teacher and a researcher with Leiden University until the autumn of 1999, when he was appointed as a researcher at the Fryske Akademy in Leeuwarden, working on an Old Frisian dictionary and preparing text editions of unedited Old Frisian texts. In 2000, he was appointed head of the section Linguistics of the Fryske Akademy. He died in his home on January the 6th, 2002.

We will remember Dirk as an important scholar of the history of Dutch, Old Frisian and Germanic, but we shall miss him even more as an inspiring teacher, an enthusiastic colleague and as a dear friend.

Michiel de Vaan via e-mail, 1.2.2002

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04.02.2002