Name Kees Versteegh | Role Linguist | |
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Books Pidginization and Creolization: The Case of Arabic | ||
Cornelis Henricus Maria Versteegh, better known as Kees Versteegh ( [ˈkeːs fərˈsteːx]; 1947-present), is a Dutch linguist and Arabist. He served as a professor of Islamic studies and the Arabic language at Radboud University Nijmegen in the Netherlands until April 2011.
Versteegh graduated from Radboud University in 1977, the subject of his doctoral dissertation having been the influence of Greek on Arabic. He was a lecturer in the Department of Middle Eastern Studies until 1987, when he took a position at the Netherlands Institute in Cairo for two years. Versteegh returned to Radboud in 1989, and in 2011 he became professor emeritus. Versteegh's research and views on the Arabic language and its evolution have been described as groundbreaking.