Wytze Hellinga

Wytze Gerbens Hellinga (20 December, 1908 Haarlem - 16 March, 1985 London) was a Dutch professor of linguistics at the University of Amsterdam.

Wytze and Lotte Hellinga with their Printing Types, 1966

Hellinga was the son of Gerben Hellinga, a school master and Taatske Zwart, a writer of children's books. Whilst his father adhered to the strict Dutch Reformed Church his mother was a militant socialist and friend of Nienke van Hichtum, who encouraged her in her career.[1]

Hellinga completed his doctorate on the pronunciation of the Dutch language in 1938 at the University of Amsterdam. He had been supervised by Willem Jacob Verdenius.[1] He was later appointed professor at the University in 1946. He remained at the university until his retirement in 1979.[2]

He discovered the only known extant copy of Joos Lambrecht's sixteenth century first edition of the Naembouck (1547) in the library of the Groot Seminarie Warmond.[3]

In 1973 he married Lotte Hellinga, a former student of his. They had co-authored the book The fifteenth-century printing types of the Low Countries published in 1966.[1]