Dirk Ferdinandus Henricus Boutkan (; 25 April 1964 â 6 January 2002) was a Dutch historical linguist and etymologist specialising in Old Frisian and Germanic. He co-authored the reference work Old Frisian Etymological Dictionary (Brill, 2005), volume 1 of the Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary series, and earlier published The Germanic Auslautgesetze: A New Interpretation (1995). He headed the Linguistics section of the Fryske Akademy.
Boutkan studied Dutch and comparative Indo-European linguistics at Leiden University, completing a PhD on Germanic historical phonology and morphology (Auslautgesetze). He worked at Leiden (research and teaching) until 1999, when he joined the Fryske Akademy in Leeuwarden. In 2000 he became head of its Linguistics section.
Boutkan died of a heart attack in his home on 6 January 2002.
Boutkan's work focused on Germanic historical phonology (especially or development of the final syllables, from Proto-Indo-European to Germanic) and Old Frisian etymology. His Old Frisian Etymological Dictionary, prepared within the Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary project, systematically assembles Old Frisian etyma with Proto-Frisian reconstructions and Germanic/Indo-European .
Old Frisian Etymological Dictionary has been reviewed in specialist venues, including Book Notices of the Linguistic Society of America and a review noted by Anatoly Liberman in Trefwoord. The work is cited as a substantial contribution to Germanic and Frisian studies.
Authority files recognise Boutkan's authorship and dates (BnF; VIAF).