Gerardus Johannes Geers, (

Delft Delft () is a List of cities in the Netherlands by province, city and Municipalities of the Netherlands, municipality in the Provinces of the Netherlands, province of South Holland, Netherlands. It is located between Rotterdam, to the southeast, ...

, 10 December 1891 –

Groningen Groningen (; gos, Grunn or ) is the capital city and main municipality of Groningen province in the Netherlands. The ''capital of the north'', Groningen is the largest place as well as the economic and cultural centre of the northern part of t ...

, the 2 May 1965), was a Dutch linguist and Hispanist. He wrote his thesis on the language of the

Blackfoot The Blackfoot Confederacy, ''Niitsitapi'' or ''Siksikaitsitapi'' (ᖹᐟᒧᐧᒣᑯ, meaning "the people" or " Blackfoot-speaking real people"), is a historic collective name for linguistically related groups that make up the Blackfoot or Bla ...

Indians in North America but spent his career studying the Spanish language and Spanish culture. In 1917 Geers travelled to Spain to become the governor of the children of the Dutch

envoy Envoy or Envoys may refer to: Diplomacy * Diplomacy, in general * Envoy (title) * Special envoy, a type of diplomatic rank Brands *Airspeed Envoy, a 1930s British light transport aircraft *Envoy (automobile), an automobile brand used to sell Bri ...

in Madrid. He mingled in leftist intellectual circles and translated

Das Kapital ''Das Kapital'', also known as ''Capital: A Critique of Political Economy'' or sometimes simply ''Capital'' (german: Das Kapital. Kritik der politischen Ökonomie, link=no, ; 1867–1883), is a foundational theoretical text in Historical mater ...

in Spanish. Under the pseudonym of Cayo Graco he published articles in socialist periodics like Nuestra Palabra and

El Comunista ''El Comunista'' ("The Communist") was the official publication of the Spanish Communist Party. The Socialist Youth of Spain (''Juventudes Socialistas de España''; JSE), like the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (''Partido Socialista Obrero Espa ...

. Despite his

diplomatic immunity Diplomatic immunity is a principle of international law by which certain foreign government officials are recognized as having legal immunity from the jurisdiction of another country.

as part of the household of the envoy he was expelled from Spain for alleged "subversive activities". Geers made a career as a teacher and became a pioneer of hispanismo in the Netherlands. He translated

Miguel de Cervantes Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra (; 29 September 1547 (assumed) – 22 April 1616 Old Style and New Style dates, NS) was an Early Modern Spanish writer widely regarded as the greatest writer in the Spanish language and one of the world's pre-emin ...

Unamuno Miguel de Unamuno y Jugo (29 September 1864 – 31 December 1936) was a Spanish essayist, novelist, poet, playwright, philosopher, professor of Greek and Classics, and later rector at the University of Salamanca. His major philosophical essa ...

Ortega y Gasset Ortega is a Spanish surname. A baptismal record in 1570 records a ''de Ortega'' "from the village of Ortega". There were several villages of this name in Spain. The toponym derives from Latin ''urtica'', meaning "nettle". Some of the Ortega spel ...

and Diez del Corral. As an hispanist he criticized the popular "

Leyenda negra The Black Legend ( es, Leyenda negra) or the Spanish Black Legend ( es, Leyenda negra española, link=no) is a theorised historiographical tendency which consists of anti-Spanish and anti-Catholic propaganda. Its proponents argue that its r ...

" and he defended King

Philip II of Spain Philip II) in Spain, while in Portugal and his Italian kingdoms he ruled as Philip I ( pt, Filipe I). (21 May 152713 September 1598), also known as Philip the Prudent ( es, Felipe el Prudente), was King of Spain from 1556, King of Portugal from ...

against the many accusations. In "El problema de los romances" (1920) Geers denied the popular thesis of Milá y Fontanals en

Menéndez Pelayo Menéndez or Menendez is a Spanish name. In English the name is often spelled without the diacritic. A shorter form sharing the same root is Mendez. It may refer to: Persons * Andrés Ignacio Menéndez (1879–1962), President of El Salvador twi ...

that the Spanish literary romances were descended from the Spanish epic works. Geers proposed that they stood in the tradition of the middle-Latin lyrics. Geers thesis was falsified by E.

García Gómez García Gómez (died after 1017) was a Leonese count, at least from 971. He was the eldest son of Gómez Díaz and Muniadomna Fernández, daughter of Fernán González, Count of Castile. From his father, the head of the Banu Gómez family, he in ...

in his article "La lírica hispano-árabe y la aparición de la lírica románica" (Al-Andalus, XXI (1956)) based on recently discovered

kharga The Kharga Oasis (Arabic: , ) ; Coptic: ( "Oasis of Hib", "Oasis of Psoi") is the southernmost of Egypt's five western oases. It is located in the Western Desert, about 200 km (125 miles) to the west of the Nile valley. "Kharga" or ...

-material. Geers became a professor of Hispanic studies in Groningen.

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Geers, Gerardus Johannes Linguists from the Netherlands Linguists from Spain 1891 births 1962 deaths 20th-century Dutch philosophers Dutch expatriates in Spain Dutch political philosophers Dutch socialists Leiden University alumni People from Delft Political philosophers Linguists of Algic languages 20th-century linguists