Luka Repanšek

Associate Professor Luka Repanšek works at the Department of Comparative and General Linguistics, Faculty of Arts, University of Ljubljana, where he teaches and researches Indo-European historical linguistics with particular focus on Indo-Iranian, Celtic and Germanic languages as well as Venetic and Latin epigraphy.

Education and career:

• BA in Comparative Indo-European Linguistics & English Studies, University of Ljubljana, 2011 (Prešeren Award for best thesis)
• MSc in Celtic Studies, University of Aberystwyth, 2012 (thesis on Celtic u-stems supervised by Patrick Sims-Williams)
• PhD in Historical Linguistics, University of Ljubljana, 2015 (thesis on Celtic relics in Slovenian toponymy; winner of the Indo-European Society’s international prize for best dissertation 2015)
• Young researcher, Fran Ramovš Institute of the Slovenian Language (ZRC SAZU), 2012-2015
• Associate Professor, University of Ljubljana, since 2022 (Ceremonial Certificate for exceptional achievements)

Research interests: His work integrates historical-comparative grammar of Indo-European, etymology, onomastics, epigraphy and paleography. He publishes on Vedic Sanskrit and Avestan morphology, Old Irish phonology, Venetic and Latin inscriptions from the Alpine region, and Celtic/Germanic substrate traces in Slovenian toponymy.

Publications trend: Recent output (2022-2025) couples field epigraphy—newly found Venetic and Latin inscriptions from western Slovenia—with detailed philological commentary, while concurrently producing language manuals (Sanskrit textbook, 2022) and comparative-historical studies of Indo-European morphophonology.

Honours & awards:

• University of Ljubljana Prešeren Award 2011
• First Prize of the Indogermanische Gesellschaft 2015
• ZRC SAZU Silver Badge 2017
• University of Ljubljana Ceremonial Certificate 2022

Teaching & mentoring: He offers a full cycle of lecture/seminar courses—from introductory Old Indian and Avestan to advanced classes in Indo-European dialectology, laryngeal theory and nominal/verbal morphology—together with field-method epigraphy workshops. No explicit roster of current graduate advisees is supplied in the source.

Labs & teams: He cooperates with the Fran Ramovš Institute (ZRC SAZU) Etymology and Onomastics Section and participates in interdisciplinary archaeological-linguistic projects surveying Venetic and Roman sites in the Soča basin and the Karst.