Dr. Sergei Anatolyevich Starostin (Cyrillic: Серге́й Анато́льевич Ста́ростин, March 24, 1953 – September 30, 2005) was a Russia

Russia

Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...

n historical linguist

Historical linguistics

Historical linguistics is the study of language change. It has five main concerns:* to describe and account for observed changes in particular languages...

 and scholar, best known for his work with hypothetical proto-language

Proto-language

A proto-language in the tree model of historical linguistics is the common ancestor of the languages that form a language family. Occasionally, the German term Ursprache is used instead.Often the proto-language is not known directly...

s, including his work on the reconstruction of the Proto-Borean language

Borean languages

Borean is a hypothetical linguistic macrofamily that traces the possible genetic relationships of the various languages of Eurasia and adjacent regions with languages spoken in the Upper Paleolithic in the millennia following the Last Glacial Maximum. The name "Borean", based on Greek βορέας,...

, the controversial theory of Altaic languages

Altaic languages

Altaic is a proposed language family that includes the Turkic, Mongolic, Tungusic, and Japonic language families and the Korean language isolate. These languages are spoken in a wide arc stretching from northeast Asia through Central Asia to Anatolia and eastern Europe...

 and the formulation of the Dené–Caucasian hypothesis.

Theories

Starostin and I.M. Diakonoff put forward a theory linking the Hurro-Urartian

Hurro-Urartian languages

The Hurro-Urartian languages are an extinct language family of the Ancient Near East, comprising only two known languages: Hurrian and Urartian, both of which were spoken in the Taurus mountains area.-Classification:...

 and the Northeast Caucasian languages

Northeast Caucasian languages

The Northeast Caucasian languages constitute a language family spoken in the Russian republics of Dagestan, Chechnya, Ingushetia, northern Azerbaijan, and in northeastern Georgia, as well as in diaspora populations in Russia, Turkey, and the Middle East...

. Starostin was also instrumental in the reconstruction of Proto-Kiranti, Proto-Tibeto-Burman, Proto-Yenisseian

Yeniseian languages

The Yeniseian language family is spoken in central Siberia.-Family division:0. Proto-Yeniseian...

, Proto-North-Caucasian

North Caucasian languages

North Caucasian languages is a blanket term for two language phyla spoken chiefly in the north Caucasus and Turkey: the Northwest Caucasian family and the Northeast Caucasian family North Caucasian languages (sometimes called simply Caucasic as opposed to Kartvelian, and to avoid confusion with...

, and Proto-Altaic. He developed the theory, originated by Abu al-Ghazi Bahadur Khan

Abu al-Ghazi Bahadur

Abu al-Ghazi Bahadur was a khan of Khiva and a historian who wrote in the Khiva dialect of the Chagatai language....

 in the 17th century, but really revived by Gustaf John Ramstedt

Gustaf John Ramstedt

Gustaf John Ramstedt was a Swedish-speaking Finnish linguist and diplomat.-Biography:Ramstedt was born in Ekenäs in Southern Finland....

 in the early 20th century, that Japanese

Japanese language

is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family, which has a number of proposed relationships with other languages, none of which has gained wide acceptance among historical linguists .Japanese is an...

 is an Altaic

Altaic languages

Altaic is a proposed language family that includes the Turkic, Mongolic, Tungusic, and Japonic language families and the Korean language isolate. These languages are spoken in a wide arc stretching from northeast Asia through Central Asia to Anatolia and eastern Europe...

 language.

The Dené–Caucasian hypothesis proposes that Northwest Caucasian, Northeast Caucasian, Yeniseian, Sino-Tibetan

Sino-Tibetan languages

The Sino-Tibetan languages are a language family comprising, at least, the Chinese and the Tibeto-Burman languages, including some 250 languages of East Asia, Southeast Asia and parts of South Asia. They are second only to the Indo-European languages in terms of the number of native speakers...

, 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

Vladislav Illich-Svitych

Vladislav Markovich Illich-Svitych was a Russian linguist and accentologist, also a founding father of comparative Nostratic linguistics.Of Ukrainian descent, he was born in Kiev but later moved to work in Moscow. He resuscitated the long-forgotten Nostratic hypothesis, originally expounded by...

), comprise the so-called Borean languages

Borean languages

Borean is a hypothetical linguistic macrofamily that traces the possible genetic relationships of the various languages of Eurasia and adjacent regions with languages spoken in the Upper Paleolithic in the millennia following the Last Glacial Maximum. The name "Borean", based on Greek βορέας,...

.

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

Murray Gell-Mann

Murray Gell-Mann is an American physicist and linguist who received the 1969 Nobel Prize in physics for his work on the theory of elementary particles...

, a Nobel Prize

Nobel Prize

The Nobel Prizes are annual international awards bestowed by Scandinavian committees in recognition of cultural and scientific advances. The will of the Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, established the prizes in 1895...

-winning physicist. At the time of his death, he was a professor

Professor

A professor is a scholarly teacher; the precise meaning of the term varies by country. Literally, professor derives from Latin as a "person who professes" being usually an expert in arts or sciences; a teacher of high rank...

 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...

, a visiting professor 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...

, and a frequent guest lecturer at Leiden University

Leiden University

Leiden University , located in the city of Leiden, is the oldest university in the Netherlands. The university was founded in 1575 by William, Prince of Orange, leader of the Dutch Revolt in the Eighty Years' War. The royal Dutch House of Orange-Nassau and Leiden University still have a close...

 in the Netherlands

Netherlands

The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...

, where he was awarded the degree of Doctor honoris causa

Honorary degree

An honorary degree or a degree honoris causa is an academic degree for which a university has waived the usual requirements, such as matriculation, residence, study, and the passing of examinations...

 in June 2005.

Starostin died of a heart attack

Myocardial infarction

Myocardial infarction or acute myocardial infarction , commonly known as a heart attack, results from the interruption of blood supply to a part of the heart, causing heart cells to die...

 on September 30, 2005, in Moscow

Moscow

Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...

. His son, George Starostin, is also a linguist.

External links

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