Dr. Starostin on June 2, 2005

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, especially the controversial theory of Altaic languages and the formulation of the Dene-Caucasian hypothesis that assumes that Northwest Caucasian, Northeast Caucasian, Yeniseian, Sino-Tibetan, and Na-Dene all have a genetic relationship. He was instrumental in the reconstruction of Proto-Kiranti, Proto-Tibeto-Burman, Proto-Yenisseian, Proto-North-Caucasian, and Proto-Altaic. He devoted much of his later life to developing the theory, originated by Abu-l-Ghazi Bahadur Khan in 17th century, but really revived by Gustaf John Ramstedt in the early 20th century, that Japanese is an Altaic language. Image File history File links Metadata No higher resolution available. ... Image File history File links Metadata No higher resolution available. ... is the 153rd day of the year (154th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... The Cyrillic alphabet (or azbuka, from the old name of the first two letters) is an alphabet used for several East and South Slavic languages; (Belarusian, Bulgarian, Macedonian, Russian, Rusyn, Serbian, and Ukrainian) and many other languages of the former Soviet Union, Asia and Eastern Europe. ... is the 83rd day of the year (84th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1953 (MCMLIII) was a common year starting on Thursday (link will display full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... is the 273rd day of the year (274th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2005 (MMV) was a common year starting on Saturday (link displays full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... Historical linguistics (also diachronic linguistics or comparative linguistics) is primarily the study of the ways in which languages change over time. ... A scholar is either a student or someone who has achieved a mastery of some academic discipline, perhaps receiving financial support through a scholarship. ... Proto-language may refer to either: a language that is the common ancestor of a set of related languages (a language family), or a system of communication during a stage in glottogony that may not yet be properly called a language. ... Altaic is a proposed language family that includes 66 languages [1] spoken by about 348 million people, mostly in and around Central Asia and northeast Asia. ... The Dené-Caucasian (also called Sino-Dené) language family is a conjectural language superfamily containing the Sino-Tibetan, North Caucasian, Yenisseian, Burushaski, Basque and Na-Dené languages. ... Sino-Tibetan languages form a language family of about 250 languages of East Asia, in number of speakers worldwide second only to Indo-European. ... Proto-Kiranti is the reconstructed protolanguage of the Kiranti language family, developed largely by Sergei Starostin in the 1980s. ... The Tibeto-Burman linguistic subfamily of the proposed Sino-Tibetan language family is spoken in various central and south Asian countries: Myanmar (Burmese language), Tibet (Tibetan language), northern Thailand (Mong language), Nepal, Bhutan, India (Himachal Pradesh, Uttaranchal, Sikkim, Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Nagaland, Manipur, Mizoram, Tripura and the Ladakh region of... The Yenisei-Ostyak language family is spoken in central Siberia. ... North Caucasian languages is a blanket term for two language phyla spoken chiefly in the north Caucasus and Turkey: the Northwest Caucasian (Pontic, Abkhaz-Adyghe, Circassian) family and the Northeast Caucasian (East Caucasian, Caspian, Nakh-Dagestanian) family; the latter including the former North-central Caucasian (Nakh) family. ... Altaic is a putative language family which would include 60 languages spoken by about 250 million people, mostly in and around central Asia. ... Gustaf John Ramstedt (1873-1950) was a Finnish linguist who worked as professor extraordinarius in Altaic languages at the University of Helsinki. ... Altaic is a proposed language family that includes 66 languages [1] spoken by about 348 million people, mostly in and around Central Asia and northeast Asia. ...

Since 1985, Starostin had been developing STARLING, which is a linguist's workplace software.

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. The meaning of the word professor (Latin: one who claims publicly to be an expert) varies. ... View of the RSUH campus The Russian State University for the Humanities, also known as RSUH or RGGU (РГГУ, Российский государственный гуманитарный университет), is a university in Moscow, Russia with over 5500 students. ... The Santa Fe Institute (or SFI) is a non-profit research institute dedicated to the study of complex systems in Santa Fe, New Mexico founded by George Cowan, David Pines, Stirling Colgate, Murray Gell-Mann, Nick Metropolis, Herb Anderson, Peter A. Carruthers, and Richard Slansky in 1984 to study complex... Leiden University, located in the city of Leiden, is the oldest university in the Netherlands[1]. It is a member of the Coimbra Group, the Europaeum and the League of European Research Universities. ... Honoris causa (plural: Causae) is a Latin term meaning for the sake of honor, abbreviated as . ...

Starostin died of a heart attack on September 30, 2005, shortly after delivering a lecture in Moscow. Acute myocardial infarction (AMI or MI), more commonly known as a heart attack, is a disease state that occurs when the blood supply to a part of the heart is interrupted. ... is the 273rd day of the year (274th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2005 (MMV) was a common year starting on Saturday (link displays full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... For other uses, see Moscow (disambiguation). ...

See also

• Dene-Sino-Caucasian
• Dene-Caucasian languages
• North Caucasian languages

Dene-Sino-Caucasian is a hypothesis proposed by Sergei Starostin among others linking such languages as Basque, Chinese, Sumerian, and Haida into a single macro-language family. ... The Dené-Caucasian (also called Sino-Dené) language family is a conjectural language superfamily containing the Sino-Tibetan, North Caucasian, Yenisseian, Burushaski, Basque and Na-Dené languages. ... North Caucasian languages is a blanket term for two language phyla spoken chiefly in the north Caucasus and Turkey: the Northwest Caucasian (Pontic, Abkhaz-Adyghe, Circassian) family and the Northeast Caucasian (East Caucasian, Caspian, Nakh-Dagestanian) family; the latter including the former North-central Caucasian (Nakh) family. ...

References

1. ^ The Tower of Babel

External links

• The Tower of Babel "a massive resource, containing huge amounts of information on almost all of Eurasia's language families"