Jaan Puhvel is an Estonian

Estonians

Estonians are a Finnic people closely related to the Finns and inhabiting, primarily, the country of Estonia. They speak a Finnic language known as Estonian...

-American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 Indo-Europeanist. As a student of Georges Dumezil

Georges Dumézil

Georges Dumézil was a French comparative philologist best known for his analysis of sovereignty and power in Proto-Indo-European religion and society...

, he also specializes in comparative mythology

Comparative mythology

Comparative mythology is the comparison of myths from different cultures in an attempt to identify shared themes and characteristics. Comparative mythology has served a variety of academic purposes...

.

He is known for his Hittite

Hittite language

Hittite is the extinct language once spoken by the Hittites, a people who created an empire centred on Hattusa in north-central Anatolia...

 Etymological Dictionary. Currently (as of 2011), the dictionary has progressed to words beginning with PA, in eight volumes. Since volume 5 (2001), the project complements the Chicago Hittite Dictionary

Chicago Hittite Dictionary

The Chicago Hittite Dictionary is a project at the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago to create a comprehensive dictionary of the Hittite language. The project was founded by Hans Gustav Güterbock and Harry Hoffner in 1975 and funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities. It...

, which began with letter L in 1980, and which has covered L, M, N, P, S. Letters still missing between the two projects are thus R, T and Z (see Hittite cuneiform

Hittite cuneiform

Hittite cuneiform is the implementation of cuneiform script used in writing the Hittite language. The surviving corpus of Hittite texts is preserved in cuneiform on clay tablets dates to the 2nd millennium BC ....

).