Helmut Rix (4 July 1926, in Amberg – 3 December 2004, in Colmar) was a German linguist and professor of the Sprachwissenschaftliches Seminar of Albert-Ludwigs-Universität, Freiburg, Germany. He is best known for his research into Indo-European and Etruscan languages, as well as for being the author of the hypothesis of Tyrrhenian languages. Biography Helmut Rix was born in 1926 in Amberg to a family of teachers. Following high school and conscripted service in the Nazi navy during World War II, he studied Indo-European studies, classical philology, and history at Wurzburg in 1946 and Heidelberg from 1947. There he received his doctorate in 1950 with his dissertation Bausteine zu einer Hydronymie Alt-Italiens. From 1951 he was assistant to Hans Krahe at Tübingen and from 1955 lecturer in Latin and Greek at the Lutheran Augustana Divinity School in Neuendettelsau. In 1959 he qualified as a full professor at Tübingen with the habilitation thesis, Das etruskische Cognomen (published in 1963 by Harrassowitz). In 1966, Rix took a position at the newly established University of Regensburg and in 1982 professorship at the University of Freiburg. He retired in 1993 and died in 2004 in Colmar from a traffic accident. Bibliography Proto-Indo-European "Anlautender Laryngal vor Liquida oder Nasalis sonans im Griechischen", Münchener Studien zur Sprachwissenschaft 27 (1970): 79–110. [formulation of the Rix law] Historische Grammatik des Griechischen: Laut- und Formenlehre. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1976 (2nd ed., 1992). The Proto-Indo-European Middle: content, forms and origin. Munich: R. Kitzinger, 1988. Lexikon der indogermanischen Verben: Die Wurzeln und ihre Primärstammbildungen. With contributions by Martin Kümmel, Thomas Zehnder, Reiner Lipp and Brigitte Schirmer. Wiesbaden: Dr. Ludwig Reichert, 1998, 754 p.; 2nd expanded and improved ed., edited by Martin Kümmel and Helmut Rix, 2001, 823 p. Kleine Schriften: Festgabe für Helmut Rix zum 75. Geburtstag, ed. Gerhard Meiser. Bremen: Hempen Verlag, 2001. Ancient Italian culture and language (except Etruscan) "Zum Ursprung des römisch-mittelitalischen Gentilnamensystems", in Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt: Geschichte und Kultur Roms im Spiegel der neueren Forschung (ANRW), vol. 1: Von den Anfängen Roms bis zum Ausgang der Republik. Berlin–NY: Walter de Gruyter, 1972, 700–758. "Die lateinische Synkope als historisches und phonologisches Problem", Kratylos 11 (1966): 156–165. Republished in: Klaus Strunk, ed., Probleme der lateinischen Grammatik. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1973, 90–102. Die Termini der Unfreiheit in den Sprachen Altitaliens. Stuttgart 1994. Sabellische Texte: Die Texte des Oskischen, Umbrischen und Südpikenischen. Heidelberg: Carl Winter University Press, 2002 [collection