Andrey Zaliznyak facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Andrey Zaliznyak
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| Андрей Зализняк | |
Andrey Zaliznyak and Vladimir Dybo
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| Born | 29 April 1935 |
| Died | 24 December 2017 (aged 82) |
| Nationality | Soviet Russian, Russian |
| Alma mater | Faculty of Philology of Moscow State University, Sorbonne |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | historical linguistics, accentology, dialectology, grammar |
| Doctoral advisor | Vyacheslav Ivanov, André Martinet |
Andrey Anatolyevich Zaliznyak (born April 29, 1935 – died December 24, 2017) was a famous linguist from the Soviet Union and Russia. A linguist is a scientist who studies human language. Andrey Zaliznyak was an expert in many areas of language. These included historical linguistics, which looks at how languages change over time. He also studied accentology, the study of word stress, and dialectology, which is about different ways people speak a language. He was also a master of grammar, the rules of a language.
In his later years, he worked hard to share his knowledge of linguistics with everyone. He also fought against ideas that were not based on real science.
Contents
About Andrey Zaliznyak
Andrey Zaliznyak was born in Moscow, a big city in Russia. He started his studies at Moscow State University. Later, he went to the Sorbonne in France to learn even more. There, he studied with a famous linguist named André Martinet.
In 1987, he became a member of the Soviet Academy of Sciences. This is a very important group of scientists. Ten years later, he became a full academician, which is an even higher honor.
His Important Books
Andrey Zaliznyak wrote many important books about the Russian language. His first big book, Russian Nominal Inflection (published in 1967), is still a key book for people studying Russian grammar.
Ten years later, he wrote a very helpful book called Grammatical Dictionary of the Russian Language. This dictionary has been printed many times. It even helped create computer programs for Russian grammar.
Discovering Ancient Texts
In 1982, Zaliznyak became very interested in birch bark scrolls. These are ancient writings found in Novgorod, a city in Russia. People started finding these scrolls in the 1950s. They are like old letters or notes written on tree bark.
Since 1986, he helped publish all the new birch scrolls that were found. As more than 700 of these old documents were discovered, Zaliznyak put all his findings into a book. This book was called Old Novgorod dialect (published in 1995). It included the texts and explanations of every birch scroll found. He even showed how to figure out how people spoke in old Novgorod by looking at mistakes in the scrolls!
In 2003, Zaliznyak published the first full study of the Novgorod Codex. This is the oldest book written in an early East Slavic language. It was an amazing discovery just three years before his study.
The Tale of Igor's Campaign
In 2004, he studied a famous old story called the Tale of Igor's Campaign. He looked at all the language clues to see if it was a real ancient text. Zaliznyak believed that no one from the 18th or 20th century could have copied the complex grammar of the 12th-century Old East Slavic language. This meant the story was truly old.
Andrey Zaliznyak also taught at several universities. He lectured at Moscow State University, the University of Geneva in Switzerland, and the University of Paris in France.
Awards and Recognition
Andrey Zaliznyak received many important awards for his work.
- 1997: Demidov Prize
- 2007: State Prize of the Russian Federation
- 2007: Solzhenitsyn Prize
- 2007: Lomonosov Gold Medal
- 2015: Shakhmatov Prize, for his work on old Russian word stress.
Important Books and Studies
- Andrey Zaliznyak. Russian Nominal Inflection. Moscow, 1967. This book is about how Russian nouns change their endings.
- Andrey Zaliznyak. Grammatical Dictionary of the Russian Language. Moscow, 1977. This dictionary helps people understand Russian grammar.
- Andrey Zaliznyak. Old Novgorod Dialect. Moscow, 2004. This book explains the language found on the ancient birch bark scrolls.
- Andrey Zaliznyak. About Faux Linguistics and Quasihistory. This book talks about fake language studies and history.
See Also
- Old Novgorod dialect
- Novgorod Codex
- The Tale of Igor's Campaign
