Nikolay Yakovlevich Marr (1864-1934) was a controversial Soviet scholar whose monogenetic theory of language constituted the officially approved ideology of Soviet linguists until 1950, when Joseph Stalin personally slammed it as anti-scientific. The following is a list of linguists, those who study linguistics. ... 1950 was a common year starting on Sunday (link will take you to calendar). ... Iosif (usually anglicized as Joseph) Vissarionovich Stalin (Russian: Иосиф Виссарионович Сталин), original name Ioseb Jughashvili (Georgian: იოსებ ჯუღაშვილი; see Other names section) (December 21, 1879[1] – March 5, 1953) was a Bolshevik revolutionary and leader of the Soviet Union. ...

Marr was born in Kutaisi, Georgia, in the family of the Scottish gardener James Marr (aged more than 80) and a Georgian woman. His parents spoke different languages, and neither of them understood Russian. Having graduated from the St Petersburg University, he taught there since 1891, becoming dean of the Oriental faculty in 1911 and member of the Russian Academy of Sciences in 1912. During those years, he excavated the ancient Armenian capital Ani, and brought to light numerous monuments of old Armenian and Georgian literature. Kutaisi (ancient names: Aea/Aia, Kutatisi) is Georgias second city in Imereti province of Western Georgia, 221 km to the west of Tbilisi, with a population of about 230,000(1989). ... Categories: Russia-related stubs | Universities and colleges in Russia | Saint Petersburg ... 1891 was a common year starting on Thursday (see link for calendar). ... Oriental in its most literal form means of or from the Orient, as opposed to Occidental meaning from the Occident. ... A database query syntax error has occurred. ... Russian Academy of Sciences: main building Russian Academy of Sciences (Росси́йская Акаде́мия Нау́к) is the national academy of Russia. ... 1912 is a leap year starting on Monday. ... For the abbreviation or acronym ANI, please see ANI. In Etruscan mythology, Ani was the sky god, perhaps equivalent to the Roman Janus. ...

Marr earned a fabulous reputation of the maverick genius with his Japhetic theory, postulating the common origin of Caucasian, Semitic-Hamitic, and Basque languages. In 1924, he went even further and proclaimed that all the languages of the world descend from a single proto-language which had consisted of four "diffused exclamations": sal, ber, yon, rosh. Although the languages undergo certain stages of development, the linguistic paleonthology makes it possible to discern elements of primordial exclamations in any given language. The term Caucasian languages is loosely used to refer to a large and extremely varied array of languages spoken by more than 7 million people in the Caucasus region of Eastern Europe, between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea. ... The Semitic languages are the northeastern subfamily of the Afro-Asiatic languages, and the only family of this group spoken in Asia. ... Basque (Euskara in Basque) is the language spoken by the Basque people, who live in northern Spain and the adjoining area of southwestern France. ... 1924 was a leap year starting on Tuesday (link will take you to calendar). ... Proto-language may either refer to a language that preceded a certain set of given languages, or to system of communication during a stage in glottogony that may not yet be properly called a language. ...

To draw support for his speculative doctrine, Marr elaborated a Marxist footing for it. He hypothesized that modern languages tend to fuse into a single language of communist society. Obtaining recognition of his theory from Soviet officials, Marr was permitted to run the National Russian Library from 1926 until 1930 and the Japhetic Institute of the Academy of Sciences from 1921 until his death. He was elected Vice-President of the Soviet Academy of Sciences in 1930. Marxism is the political practice and social theory based on the works of Karl Marx, a 19th century philosopher, economist, journalist, and revolutionary, along with Friedrich Engels. ... Communism - Wikipedia /**/ @import /skins/monobook/IE50Fixes. ...

In his notorious philippic against Marr, Marxism and Problems of Linguistics (1950), Stalin wrote that "N. Y. Marr introduced into linguistics incorrect and non-Marxist formula, regarding the "class character" of language, and got himself into a muddle and put linguistics into a muddle. Soviet linguistics cannot be advanced on the basis of an incorrect formula which is contrary to the whole course of the history of peoples and languages."

Related articles

• Origin of language

The origin of language is a topic that has been written about for centuries, but the ephemeral nature of speech means that there is almost no data on which to base conclusions on the subject. ...

External link

• Marxism and Problems of Linguistics, by Joseph Stalin (http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1950/jun/20.htm)