Abel Hovelacque


Abel Hovelacque was a 19th-century French linguist, anthropologist and politician.

Biography

Abel Hovelacque was a representative of the naturalistic and anthropological linguistics. He studied languages with Honoré Chavée and comparative anatomy with Paul Broca. He was a founder of the, in which he was made professor of linguistic ethnography, and of which, after the death of Jules Gavarret, he became director. He was a member of the Society of Anthropology of Paris. In 1886 Hovelacque and Chavée founded the Revue de Linguistique.
He was also interested in politics. He served on the which he presided in 1887–1888. He became MP for Paris from 1889 to 1894. He was an extreme Republican.
The in Paris was named after him as well as two others in Lille and Saint Etienne. The anatomist André Hovelacque was his son.

Publications