Sergei Starostin

Sergei Anatolyevich Starostin
Starostin at the conference in memory of V. M. Illich-Svitych on October 21–23, 2004
Born	(1953-03-24)March 24, 1953 Moscow, Russian SFSR
Died	September 30, 2005(2005-09-30) (aged 52) Moscow, Russia
Children	Georgiy Starostin
Academic background
Influences	Aharon Dolgopolsky, Vladislav Illich-Svitych, Andrey Zaliznyak, Vladimir Dybo, Sergei Yakhontov
Academic work
School or tradition	Moscow school, historical linguistics
Main interests	Long-range language reconstruction (especially Nostratic and Dené–Caucasian), glottochronology, accentology (especially Indo-European)
Notable ideas	Dené–Caucasian hypothesis, reconstruction of Proto-Altaic, Proto-North-Caucasian, Proto-Yeniseian, Proto-Tibeto-Burman, Proto-Kiranti, reconstruction of Old Chinese and Proto-Japanese, advancement of "recalibrated glottochronology"
Influenced	Merritt Ruhlen, John Bengtson

Sergei Anatolyevich Starostin (Russian: Серге́й Анато́льевич Ста́ростин; March 24, 1953 – September 30, 2005) was a Russian historical linguist and philologist, perhaps best known for his reconstructions of hypothetical proto-languages, including his work on the controversial Altaic theory, the formulation of the Dené–Caucasian hypothesis, and the proposal of a Borean language of still earlier date. None of his proposed macrofamilies have seen wide-scale acceptance in the linguistic community (and are mostly seen as implausible), though his proposals remain influential outside of academia. He was also the author of a widely respected reconstruction of Old Chinese.

Theories

In 1986, Starostin and Igor M. Diakonoff suggested that the Hurro-Urartian languages belong to the Northeast Caucasian language family. Starostin was also instrumental in the reconstruction of Proto-Kiranti, Proto-Tibeto-Burman, Proto-Yeniseian, Proto-North-Caucasian, and Proto-Altaic. He developed the hypothesis, originated by Abu al-Ghazi Bahadur Khan in the 17th century, but really revived by Gustaf John Ramstedt in the early 20th century, that Japanese is related to the Turkic and Mongolic languages through an "Altaic" family.

The Dené–Caucasian hypothesis proposes that Northwest Caucasian, Northeast Caucasian, Yeniseian, Sino-Tibetan, and Na-Dené form a single, higher-order language family. According to Starostin, the Dené–Caucasian and Austric macrofamilies, together with the Nostratic macrofamily (as envisaged by Vladislav Illich-Svitych, with some modifications), can further be linked at an earlier stage, which Starostin called the Borean (i.e. 'Northern') languages.

Evolution of Human Languages project

Main article: Evolution of Human Languages

Since 1985, Starostin had been developing STARLING, a database management system designed for his Tower of Babel website. He was assisted in his work by Murray Gell-Mann, a Nobel Prize-winning physicist. 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, in Moscow after a lecture at the Russian State University for the Humanities. His son, Georgiy Starostin, is also a linguist.

Selected works

• 1986. Co-authored with Igor M. Diakonoff. Hurro-Urartian as an Eastern Caucasian Language. Munich: R. Kitzinger.
• 1989. Реконструкция древнекитайской фонологической системы [Reconstruction of Old Chinese Phonological System]. Moscow: Nauka.
• 1991. Алтайская проблема и происхождение японского языка [The Altaic Problem and the Origin of the Japanese Language]. Moscow: Nauka.
• 1994. Co-authored with Sergei Nikolaev. A North Caucasian Etymological Dictionary. Moscow: Asterisk Publishers.
• 1995. "The historical position of Bai". Московский лингвистический журнал 1, 174-190. Moscow.
• 2003. Co-authored with Anna V. Dybo and Oleg A. Mudrak. Etymological Dictionary of the Altaic Languages, 3 volumes. Leiden: Brill. ISBN 9004131531.
• 2005. Co-authored with Svetlana Burlak. Сравнительно-историческое языкознание [Comparative-Historical Linguistics]. Moscow: Academia. ISBN 5-7695-1445-0.

See also

• Moscow School of Comparative Linguistics

References

• Baxter, William H. (2006). "Eulogy: Sergej Anatol′evič Starostin" (PDF). Journal of Chinese Linguistics. 34 (1): 164–166. JSTOR 23754153.
• Bengtson, John D.; Blažek, Václav (2005). "Obituary: Sergei Anatolyevich Starostin" (PDF). Journal of Indo-European Studies. 33 (3/4): 307–314.
• Woodward, Richard B. (2006). "The Man Who Loved Languages" (PDF). The American Scholar. 75 (4): 44–57. JSTOR 41222651.

External links

• The Tower of Babel, a large linguistics database built largely by Sergei and George Starostin