Adolfo Constenla Umaña

Adolfo Constenla Umaña (born January 14, 1948 in San José, Costa Rica; died November 7, 2013) was a Costa Rican philologist and linguist who specialized in the indigenous languages of Central America. He is especially known as a leading scholar on Chibchan languages.[1][2][3]

Adolfo Constenla Umaña
Born
Adolfo Constenla Umaña

January 14, 1948
San José, Costa Rica
DiedNovember 7, 2013
Costa Rica
NationalityCosta Rican
OccupationLinguist
Academic work
InstitutionsUniversity of Costa Rica
Main interestsChibchan languages

Education

He studied Spanish philology at the University of Costa Rica. In 1981, he graduated with a Ph.D. in Linguistics from the University of Pennsylvania with a thesis on the comparative phonology of the Chibchan languages.[4]

Career

Since 1970, he worked as a teacher and researcher at the School of Philology, Linguistics, and Literature at the University of Costa Rica. He became Professor in 1983.

Adolfo Constenla was the founder and coordinator of the Programa de Investigaciones sobre las Lenguas de Costa Rica y Áreas Vecinas (PIL; "Research Program on the Languages of Costa Rica and Neighboring Areas"). From 1985 to 1996, he collected and analyzed linguistic data of many indigenous Central America languages.

From 1988–1989, he was a visiting professor at the State University of New York at Albany. In 1995, he became a full member of the Academia Costarricense de la Lengua.

For his work, Constenla received the Aquileo J. Echeverría National Award three times, in 1979, 1998, and 2007). In addition, he received the Carlos Gagini Award from the Costa Rican Association of Philology and Linguistics in 1984.

He died from cancer on November 7, 2013 at the age of 65.[1]

References
  1. "Falleció Adolfo Constenla, investigador pionero de lenguas indígenas". 8 November 2013. Retrieved 8 November 2013.
  2. Constenla Umaña, Adolfo. (1991). Las lenguas del Área Intermedia: Introducción a su estudio areal. Editorial de la Universidad de Costa Rica, San José.
  3. Constenla Umaña, Adolfo. (1995). Sobre el estudio diacrónico de las lenguas chibchenses y su contribución al conocimiento del pasado de sus hablantes. Boletín del Museo del Oro 38–39: 13–56.
  4. Constenla Umaña, A. (1981). Comparative Chibchan Phonology. Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Linguistics, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia.
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