Svetlana Burlak, russian: Светлана Анатольевна Бурлак) (born June 12, 1969) is a Russian linguist, an

Indo-European languages The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the overwhelming majority of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and the northern Indian subcontinent. Some European languages of this family, English, French, Portuguese, Russian, Dutc ...

scholar, as well as an author of works on comparative linguistics and on the genesis of human language. She is a senior researcher at the

Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences The Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences (russian: Институт востоковедения Российской Академии Наук), formerly Institute of Oriental Studies of the USSR Academy of Sciences, ...

and a Tocharist. Burlak has composed many linguistic problems, and has also written several manuals and popular science publications. She is one of the permanent professors of the summer linguistic school and summer ecological school. Burlak is

Professor of the Russian Academy of Sciences Professor of the Russian Academy of Sciences (Professor of the RAS, or RAS Professor; russian: Профе́ссор Росси́йской акаде́мии нау́к – Proféssor Rossíiskoj akadémii naúk) is an academic rank introduced in ...

. Burlak participated regularly in the Russian intellectual quiz show, ''

What? Where? When? ''What? Where? When?'' (russian: Что? Где? Когда?, translit. ''Chto? Gde? Kogda?'') is an intellectual game show well known in Russian-language media and other CIS states since the mid-1970s. Today it is produced for televisio ...

'' from 1995 to 2006 as a part of Ilya Itkin’s team. Burlak graduated from the Department of Theoretical and Applied Linguistics of the faculty of philology at

Lomonosov Moscow State University M. V. Lomonosov Moscow State University (MSU; russian: Московский государственный университет имени М. В. Ломоносова) is a public research university in Moscow, Russia and the most prestigious ...

in 1991, and obtained her PhD in 1995. Her major works include articles and books on comparative linguistics and on Tocharistics, and research on the genesis of human language. Since 1996 she has given lectures at MSU on comparative linguistics. Burlak has authored approximately 20 articles and books, including ''Historical phonology of the Tocharian languages'' and the manual ''Comparative linguistics'' (jointly with

Sergei Starostin 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 hypothet ...

).Burlak, Svetlana
Philological Faculty of Moscow State University, accessed June 18, 2010

References

Linguists from Russia Historical linguists 1969 births Living people Moscow State University alumni Russian women linguists Linguists of Tocharian languages Long-range comparative linguists {{russia-linguist-stub