Ernst Windisch

Ernst Wilhelm Oskar Windisch (4 September 1844, Dresden – 30 October 1918, Leipzig) was a German scholar and Celticist. He is known as an Indo-Europeanist. He was a son-in-law to economist Wilhelm Roscher. He was also a friend of the young Friedrich Nietzsche.

In 1867 he obtained his PhD in classical philology at the University of Leipzig, afterwards remaining in Leipzig as a teacher at the "Thomasschule" (1867–1870). In the meantime, he received his habilitation in Sanskrit and comparative linguistics at the university (1869).

In 1870–71 he worked as a staff member of the India Office Library in London. Later on, he became a professor at the University of Leipzig, where in 1895/96 he served as rector. From 1883 to 1918, he was a member of the Sächsische Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Leipzig (Royal Saxon Society of Sciences in Leipzig).