Georgiy Starostin
Encyclopedia
Georgiy Sergeevich Starostin (Russian: Гео́ргий Серге́евич Ста́ростин, born July 4, 1976) is a Russian linguistics
researcher at the Center of Comparative Studies at the Russian State University for the Humanities
, and a participant at the Santa Fe Institute
's Evolution of Human Languages project. He is the son of the late Sergei Anatolyevich Starostin (1953–2005), and carries on several of his father's projects. He also is a prolific self-published Internet music critic.
(1953–2005), formerly Russia's leading specialist in comparative linguistics
and head of the so-called 'Moscow school' of that field.
Since the early 2000s
he has worked at the Center of Comparative Studies at the Russian State University for the Humanities
, where he also teaches, as well as serves as head of the Department of Far Eastern Philology at the same institution; specializing in Dravidian
, general Nostratic, Sino-Tibetan (mainly Chinese), Yenisseian, and Khoisan
studies.
He carries on several of his father's projects, including the participation at the Santa Fe Institute
.
With John Bengtson
, Starostin edited the journal Mother Tongue
in 2003.
, a publicly searchable online database containing information about many Eurasia
's language families; and STARLING, a software package to aid comparative linguists.
. The project distinguishes about 6000 language
s spoken in the world nowadays, and aims to provide a detailed classification similar to the accepted classification
of biological species.
Their idea is that "all representatives of the species Homo sapiens presumably share a common origin, [so] it would be natural to suppose - although this is a goal yet to be achieved - that all human languages also go back to some common source. Most existing classifications, however, do not go beyond some 300-400 language families that are relatively easy to discern. This restriction has natural reasons: languages must have been spoken and constantly evolving for at least 40,000 years (and quite probably more), while any two languages separated from a common source inevitably lose almost all superficially common features after some 6,000-7,000 years".
George Starostin's research here focuses on the Khoisan
, formerly, Bushman-Hottentot languages of South Africa
. According to Starostin "important work on Khoisan languages has been done in the past century, mostly in the descriptive and taxonomic area, not much progress has been achieved in establishing regular phonological correspondences between the main branches of Khoisan and reconstructing the phonological and morphological system of Proto-Khoisan."
song. Until April 2006 the site was frequently updated, and covers in detail the music of most of the major rock groups and musicians of the 1960s and 1970s, although he has reviewed less material of groups primarily associated with the 1980s and beyond. He has said that the main reason for this is because he believes that rock music has been becoming steadily worse since the 1960s to the point that it is now "dead", and cites Mark Prindle as the original insipiration for him becoming an online music critic.
After more than a year without updates, Starostin announced that he would not continue his work on Only Solitaire. Following a two-year break, he subsequently began a sporadic process of updates and new reviews from December 2009 onwards. As of 2011, he posts new reviews regularly on his Blogger
website.
Linguistics
Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. Linguistics can be broadly broken into three categories or subfields of study: language form, language meaning, and language in context....
researcher at the Center of Comparative Studies at the Russian State University for the Humanities
Russian State University for the Humanities
The Russian State University for the Humanities , is a university in Moscow, Russia with over 5500 students. It was created in 1991 as the result of the merger of the Moscow Public University and the Moscow State Institute for History and Archives The Russian State University for the Humanities...
, and a participant at the Santa Fe Institute
Santa Fe Institute
The Santa Fe Institute is an independent, nonprofit theoretical research institute located in Santa Fe and dedicated to the multidisciplinary study of the fundamental principles of complex adaptive systems, including physical, computational, biological, and social systems.The Institute houses a...
's Evolution of Human Languages project. He is the son of the late Sergei Anatolyevich Starostin (1953–2005), and carries on several of his father's projects. He also is a prolific self-published Internet music critic.
Biography
Starostin is the son of the late Sergei StarostinSergei Starostin
Dr. Sergei Anatolyevich Starostin 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...
(1953–2005), formerly Russia's leading specialist in comparative linguistics
Comparative linguistics
Comparative linguistics is a branch of historical linguistics that is concerned with comparing languages to establish their historical relatedness....
and head of the so-called 'Moscow school' of that field.
Since the early 2000s
he has worked at the Center of Comparative Studies at the Russian State University for the Humanities
Russian State University for the Humanities
The Russian State University for the Humanities , is a university in Moscow, Russia with over 5500 students. It was created in 1991 as the result of the merger of the Moscow Public University and the Moscow State Institute for History and Archives The Russian State University for the Humanities...
, where he also teaches, as well as serves as head of the Department of Far Eastern Philology at the same institution; specializing in Dravidian
Dravidian peoples
Dravidian peoples is a term used to refer to the diverse groups of people who natively speak languages belonging to the Dravidian language family. Populations of speakers of around 220 million are found mostly in Southern India. Other Dravidian people are found in parts of central India, Sri Lanka,...
, general Nostratic, Sino-Tibetan (mainly Chinese), Yenisseian, and Khoisan
Khoisan
Khoisan is a unifying name for two ethnic groups of Southern Africa, who share physical and putative linguistic characteristics distinct from the Bantu majority of the region. Culturally, the Khoisan are divided into the foraging San and the pastoral Khoi...
studies.
He carries on several of his father's projects, including the participation at the Santa Fe Institute
Santa Fe Institute
The Santa Fe Institute is an independent, nonprofit theoretical research institute located in Santa Fe and dedicated to the multidisciplinary study of the fundamental principles of complex adaptive systems, including physical, computational, biological, and social systems.The Institute houses a...
.
With John Bengtson
John Bengtson
John D. Bengtson is a historical and anthropological linguist. He is a past president and currently a vice-president of the Association for the Study of Language in Prehistory, and has served as editor of the journal Mother Tongue...
, Starostin edited the journal Mother Tongue
Mother Tongue (journal)
Mother Tongue is the yearly periodical of the Association for the Study of Language In Prehistory and was established in 1995. Its goal is to encourage international and interdisciplinary information sharing, discussion, and debate among geneticists, paleoanthropologists, archaeologists, and...
in 2003.
Work
Starostin's research focuses on the Evolution of Human Languages project; The Tower of BabelBabylon
Babylon was an Akkadian city-state of ancient Mesopotamia, the remains of which are found in present-day Al Hillah, Babil Province, Iraq, about 85 kilometers south of Baghdad...
, a publicly searchable online database containing information about many Eurasia
Eurasia
Eurasia is a continent or supercontinent comprising the traditional continents of Europe and Asia ; covering about 52,990,000 km2 or about 10.6% of the Earth's surface located primarily in the eastern and northern hemispheres...
's language families; and STARLING, a software package to aid comparative linguists.
Evolution of Human Languages
The Evolution of Human Languages (EHL) is an international project on "the linguistic prehistory of humanity" coordinated by the Santa Fe InstituteSanta Fe Institute
The Santa Fe Institute is an independent, nonprofit theoretical research institute located in Santa Fe and dedicated to the multidisciplinary study of the fundamental principles of complex adaptive systems, including physical, computational, biological, and social systems.The Institute houses a...
. The project distinguishes about 6000 language
Language
Language may refer either to the specifically human capacity for acquiring and using complex systems of communication, or to a specific instance of such a system of complex communication...
s spoken in the world nowadays, and aims to provide a detailed classification similar to the accepted classification
Biological classification
Biological classification, or scientific classification in biology, is a method to group and categorize organisms by biological type, such as genus or species. Biological classification is part of scientific taxonomy....
of biological species.
George Starostin's research here focuses on the Khoisan
Khoisan
Khoisan is a unifying name for two ethnic groups of Southern Africa, who share physical and putative linguistic characteristics distinct from the Bantu majority of the region. Culturally, the Khoisan are divided into the foraging San and the pastoral Khoi...
, formerly, Bushman-Hottentot languages of South Africa
South Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
. According to Starostin "important work on Khoisan languages has been done in the past century, mostly in the descriptive and taxonomic area, not much progress has been achieved in establishing regular phonological correspondences between the main branches of Khoisan and reconstructing the phonological and morphological system of Proto-Khoisan."
The Tower of Babel project
The Tower of Babel is an International Etymological Database Project coordinated by the Center of Comparative Linguistics of the Russian State University of the Humanities. The project aims to "join efforts in the research of long range connections between established language families of the world. The Internet is used to combine these attempts and to build up a commonly accessible database of roots, or etyma reconstructed for the World's major (and minor) linguistic stocks."The Starling database program
The Starling database program is part of the The Tower of Babel project. This software program developed by Starostin aims to support "various types of linguistic text and database processing, including handling of linguistic fonts in the DOS and WINDOWS operating systems, operations with linguistic databases and Internet presentation of linguistic data".Music criticism
Since 1998, Starostin has also written a large number of extensive reviews of rock music groups and albums on his site, Only Solitaire, named after a Jethro TullJethro Tull (band)
Jethro Tull are a British rock group formed in 1967. Their music is characterised by the vocals, acoustic guitar, and flute playing of Ian Anderson, who has led the band since its founding, and the guitar work of Martin Barre, who has been with the band since 1969.Initially playing blues rock with...
song. Until April 2006 the site was frequently updated, and covers in detail the music of most of the major rock groups and musicians of the 1960s and 1970s, although he has reviewed less material of groups primarily associated with the 1980s and beyond. He has said that the main reason for this is because he believes that rock music has been becoming steadily worse since the 1960s to the point that it is now "dead", and cites Mark Prindle as the original insipiration for him becoming an online music critic.
After more than a year without updates, Starostin announced that he would not continue his work on Only Solitaire. Following a two-year break, he subsequently began a sporadic process of updates and new reviews from December 2009 onwards. As of 2011, he posts new reviews regularly on his Blogger
Blogger (service)
Blogger is a blog-publishing service that allows private or multi-user blogs with time-stamped entries. It was created by Pyra Labs, which was bought by Google in 2003. Generally, the blogs are hosted by Google at a subdomain of blogspot.com. Up until May 1, 2010 Blogger allowed users to publish...
website.
Publications
Starostin has written a number of articles on Dravidian, Yeniseian, Khoisan, and language isolates. A selection:- 1995, "The Structure of the Ket Verbal Form", with KY Reshetnikov, in: Ket Volume, issue 4 (1995, Moscow). (Russian language)
- 1995, "The Morphology of the Kott Verb and the Reconstruction of the Proto-Yenisseian Verbal System", in: Ket Volume, issue 4 (1995, Moscow). (Russian language)
- 1997, "Alveolar Consonants in Proto-Dravidian: One or More?", in: "Proceedings on South Asian Languages" (July 1–4, 1997), Moscow .
- 2002, "On The Genetic Affiliation Of The Elamite Language", in: Mother TongueMother Tongue (journal)Mother Tongue is the yearly periodical of the Association for the Study of Language In Prehistory and was established in 1995. Its goal is to encourage international and interdisciplinary information sharing, discussion, and debate among geneticists, paleoanthropologists, archaeologists, and...
, Vol. 7, 2002. - 2003, "A lexicostatistical approach towards reconstructing Proto-Khoisan", in: Mother TongueMother Tongue (journal)Mother Tongue is the yearly periodical of the Association for the Study of Language In Prehistory and was established in 1995. Its goal is to encourage international and interdisciplinary information sharing, discussion, and debate among geneticists, paleoanthropologists, archaeologists, and...
, Vol. 8, 2003. - 2005, "Some Aspects Of The Historical Development Of Clicks In Khoisan Languages", in: "Aspects of Comparative Linguistics", v. 1 (2005, Moscow, RSUH Publishers). (Russian language)
- 2008 "From modern Khoisan languages to Proto-Khoisan: The value of intermediate reconstructions" (originally in: Aspects of Comparative Linguistics 3 (2008), 337-470, Moscow: RSUH Publishers)
External links
- Webpage about Georgiy Starostin at the Santa Fe Institute.
- Only Solitaire: George Starostin's music reviews at Starling.rinet.ru.
- George Starostin's current music reviews site.
- Notes on the Moscow Conference on Long-Range Comparison