Warren Cowgill was a professor of linguistics at Yale University

Yale University

Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...

 and the Encyclopædia Britannica

Encyclopædia Britannica

The Encyclopædia Britannica , published by Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., is a general knowledge English-language encyclopaedia that is available in print, as a DVD, and on the Internet. It is written and continuously updated by about 100 full-time editors and more than 4,000 expert...

’s authority on Indo-European linguistics. He was unusual among Indo-European linguists of his time in believing that Indo-European should be classified as a branch of Indo-Hittite

Indo-Hittite

In Indo-European linguistics, the term Indo-Hittite refers to Sturtevant's 1926 hypothesis that the Anatolian languages may have split off the Proto-Indo-European language considerably earlier than the separation of the remaining Indo-European languages...

, with Hittite

Hittite language

Hittite is the extinct language once spoken by the Hittites, a people who created an empire centred on Hattusa in north-central Anatolia...

 as a sister language of the Indo-European languages, rather than a daughter language. He was also a supporter of the Indo-Uralic

Indo-Uralic languages

Indo-Uralic is a proposed language family consisting of Indo-European and Uralic.A genetic relationship between Indo-European and Uralic was first proposed by the Danish linguist Vilhelm Thomsen in 1869 but was received with little enthusiasm...

 hypothesis.

Warren Cowgill and his twin brother, anthropologist George Cowgill

George Cowgill

George L. Cowgill is an American anthropologist and archaeologist. He is currently professor emeritus at Arizona State University. He received his PhD from Harvard in 1963 with a dissertation on The Post-Classic Period in the Southern Maya Lowlands. Most of his career has been devoted to research...

, were born near Grangeville, Idaho

Idaho

Idaho is a state in the Rocky Mountain area of the United States. The state's largest city and capital is Boise. Residents are called "Idahoans". Idaho was admitted to the Union on July 3, 1890, as the 43rd state....

. He graduated from Stanford University in 1952 and received a Ph.D. from Yale in 1957. He was a member of the Yale faculty in the Department of Linguistics until his death in 1985.

External links

• Table of contents for The Collected Writings of Warren Cowgill, Jared Klein, editor.
• Publisher’s page