Achille Emile Meeussen, also spelled Achiel Emiel Meeussen, or simply A.E. Meeussen (as he generally signed his articles) (1912-1978) was a distinguished Belgian specialist in Bantu languages, particularly those of the Belgian Congo and Rwanda. Together with the British scholar Malcolm Guthrie (1903-1972) he is regarded as one of the two leading experts in Bantu languages in the second half of the 20th century.
A. E. Meeussen studied Classical Philology at the Catholic University of Louvain (Leuven) in Belgium, where he submitted his PhD thesis on Indo-European ablaut in 1938. After studying at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, in 1950 he was appointed to the staff of the Royal Museum for Central Africa in Tervuren, Belgium; he was director of the linguistics department of the museum from 1958-77. He was also Professor of African Linguistics at the University of Louvain from 1952–62 and later Professor at Leiden University in the Netherlands from 1964-77.
Among the Bantu languages which Meeussen described or studied were Luba-Kasayi (1951), Ombo (1952), Kirundi (1952), Laadi (1953), Bangubangu (1954), Bemba (1954), Luganda (1955), Shambala (1955), Sotho (1958), Lega (1962), Tonga (1963), and Yao (1971). His descriptions of the grammar of Ombo, Bangubangu, and Rundi were written as a result of fieldwork notes which he made on a visit to Rwanda-Urundi and Maniema district of the Belgian Congo in 1950-51; the information on Lega was obtained from visitors to the Museum. He also wrote articles on other languages, including the American Indian languages Cheyenne and Cree (1962).