Sergei Starostin

Dr. Sergei Anatolyevich Starostin (Cyrillic: Серге́й Анато́льевич Ста́ростин, March 24, 1953 – September 30, 2005 [ [http://starling.rinet.ru/ The Tower of Babel] ] ) 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 al-Ghazi Bahadur Khan in 17th century, but really revived by Gustaf John Ramstedt in the early 20th century, that Japanese is an Altaic language.

Since 1985, Starostin had been developing [http://starling.rinet.ru/program.php?lan=en 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.

Starostin died of a heart attack on September 30, 2005, shortly after delivering a lecture in Moscow. His son, George Starostin, is also a linguist, as well as being well-known on the internet as a hobbyist music critic.

ee also

* Dene-Sino-Caucasian
* Dene-Caucasian languages
* North Caucasian languages

References

External links

* [http://starling.rinet.ru/memorial/baxter.pdf Eulogy] by William H. Baxter

* [http://starling.rinet.ru/babel.php?lan=en The Tower of Babel] "a massive resource, containing huge amounts of information on almost all of Eurasia's language families"