| Birth Date: | 14 November 1843 |
| Birth Place: | Paris |
| Death Place: | Paris |
| Occupation: | Linguiste Anthropologist Politician |
Abel Hovelacque (14 November 1843 – 22 February 1896) was a 19th-century French linguist, anthropologist and politician.
Abel Hovelacque was a representative of the naturalistic and anthropological linguistics. He studied languages with Honoré Chavée and comparative anatomy with Paul Broca.[1] He was a founder of the, in which he was made professor of linguistic ethnography, and of which, after the death of Jules Gavarret, he became director (1890). He was a member of the Society of Anthropology of Paris. In 1886 Hovelacque and Chavée founded the Revue de Linguistique. That same year, he was elected as a member to the American Philosophical Society.[2]
He was also interested in politics. He served on the which he presided in 1887–1888. He became MP for Paris (13th) from 1889 to 1894.[3] He was an extreme Republican.
The in Paris was named after him as well as two others in Lille and Saint Etienne. The anatomist André Hovelacque (1880-1939) was his son.