Sergei Anatolyevich Starostin
 Dr. Starostin on June 2, 2000 |
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| Full name | Sergei Anatolyevich Starostin |
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| Born | March 24, 1953 |
| Died | September 30, 2005 (aged 52) |
| Region | Historical linguistics, "Moscow school" |
| School | Linguistics |
| Main interests | long-range language reconstruction (especially Nostratic and Dené–Caucasian), glottochronology, accentology (especially Indo-European) |
| Notable ideas | Dené–Caucasian hypothesis, reconstruction of Proto-Altaic, Proto-North-Caucasian, Proto-Yeniseian, Proto-Tibeto-Burman, Proto-Kiranti, reconstruction of Old Chinese and Proto-Japanese, advancement of "recalibrated glottochronology" |
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Dr. Sergei Anatolyevich Starostin (Cyrillic: Серге́й Анато́льевич Ста́ростин, March 24, 1953 – September 30, 2005[1]) was a Russian historical linguist and scholar, best known for his work with hypothetical proto-languages, including his work on the reconstruction of the Proto-Borean language, the controversial theory of Altaic languages and the formulation of the Dené–Caucasian hypothesis.
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[edit] Theories
Starostin and I.M. Diakonoff put forward a theory linking the Hurro-Urartian and the Northeast Caucasian languages. Starostin was also instrumental in the reconstruction of Proto-Kiranti, Proto-Tibeto-Burman, Proto-Yenisseian, Proto-North-Caucasian, and Proto-Altaic. He developed the theory, originated by Abu al-Ghazi Bahadur Khan in the 17th century, but really revived by Gustaf John Ramstedt in the early 20th century, that Japanese is an Altaic language.
The Dené–Caucasian hypothesis proposes that Northwest Caucasian, Northeast Caucasian, Yeniseian, Sino-Tibetan, and Na-Dené have a genetic relationship. According to Starostin, the Dené–Caucasian and Austric macrofamilies, together with the Nostratic macrofamily (as envisaged by Vladislav Illich-Svitych), comprise the so-called Borean languages.
[edit] Evolution of Human Languages project
Since 1985, Starostin had been developing STARLING, a linguist's workplace software. He was assisted in his work by Murray Gell-Mann, a Nobel Prize-winning physicist.[2] At the time of his death, he was a professor at the Russian State University for the Humanities, a visiting professor at the Santa Fe Institute, and a frequent guest lecturer at Leiden University in the Netherlands, where he was awarded the degree of Doctor honoris causa in June 2005.
Starostin died of a heart attack on September 30, 2005, in Moscow. His son, George Starostin, is also a linguist.
[edit] See also
[edit] Notes
[edit] References
- Baxter, William H. (2006), "Eulogy: Sergej Anatol′evič Starostin" (PDF), Journal of Chinese Linguistics 34 (1): 164–166, http://starling.rinet.ru/memorial/baxter.pdf
- Bengtson, John D.; Blažek, Václav (Fall/Winter 2005), "Obituary: Sergei Anatolyevich Starostin" (PDF), The Journal of Indo-European Studies 33 (3/4): 307–314, http://jdbengt.net/06Starostin.pdf
[edit] External links
- The Tower of Babel "a massive resource, containing huge amounts of information on almost all of Eurasia's language families"
