Sergey E. Yakhontov (russian: Серге́й Евге́ньевич Я́хонтов, ''Sergej Jevgen'evič Jachontov''; December 13, 1926 in

Leningrad Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...

– 28 January 2018) was a Russian linguist, an expert in Chinese, comparative, and general linguistics. He was the son of astronomer Nataliya Sergeevna Samoilova-Yakhontova. In 1950 he was graduated from the Oriental Faculty of

Leningrad State University Saint Petersburg State University (SPBU; russian: Санкт-Петербургский государственный университет) is a public research university in Saint Petersburg, Russia. Founded in 1724 by a decree of Peter the G ...

. In 1962–1963 he underwent training in Beijing and visited

Nanyang University Nanyang University (, also known as Nantah (), was a university in Singapore between 1956 and 1980. During its existence, it was Singapore's only private university in the Chinese language. In 1980, Nanyang University was merged with the Univer ...

(Singapore) from 1971 to 1972. He taught at the Oriental Faculty of St. Petersburg State University. Yakhontov studied under

Alexander Dragunov Alexander Aleksandrovic Dragunov (Александр Александрович Драгунов; 1900–1955) was a Soviet philologist and Sinologist. He is particularly known for his contributions to phonetic reconstruction of the Old Mandari ...

and developed on many ideas of his teacher, creating the Leningrad (St. Petersburg) school of

Sino-Tibetan Sino-Tibetan, also cited as Trans-Himalayan in a few sources, is a family of more than 400 languages, second only to Indo-European in number of native speakers. The vast majority of these are the 1.3 billion native speakers of Chinese languages. ...

linguistics. He published dozens of articles, many translated into English, Chinese, and Japanese. In particular, he made major contributions to

Old Chinese phonology Scholars have attempted to reconstruct the phonology of Old Chinese from documentary evidence. Although the writing system does not describe sounds directly, shared phonetic components of the most ancient Chinese characters are believed to link ...

, proposing the *l medial (now commonly treated as *r) and a rounded vowel *o, which led to the six vowel system that is now accepted by most researchers.

Works

*Яхонтов С.Е. (1957). ''Категория глагола в китайском языке / Kategorija glagola v kitajskom jazyke he category of verb in Chinese'. Leningrad: ЛГУ/LGU. **Chinese translation: 雅洪托夫 С. Е. 汉语动词范畴. 北京 : 中华书局. 1958. 188页. (中国语文丛书). *Яхонтов С.Е. "Фонетика китайского языка I тысячелетия до н.э. (система финалей). hinese phonology of the 1st millennium BC (system of finals), ''Проблемы востоковедения'' 2 (1959): 137–147. **translation by Jerry Norman: "Chinese phonology of the first millennium BC", ''Unicorn'' 1 (1968): 47–65. *Яхонтов С.Е. "Фонетика китайского языка I тысячелетия до н.э. (лабиализованные гласные). hinese phonology of the 1st millennium BC (labialized vowels), ''Проблемы востоковедения'' 6 (1960): 102–115. **translation by Jerry Norman: "The phonology of Chinese in the first millennium BC (rounded vowels)", ''Unicorn'' 6 (1970): 52–75. *Яхонтов С.Е. (1963). "Сочетания согласных в древнекитайском языке onsonant clusters in Old Chinese, ''Труды двадцать пятого международного конгресса востоковедов'', Moscow, 9–16 August 1960 г. Moscow: Издательство восточной литературы/Izdatel'stvo vostočnoj literatury. T. 5, 89–95. *Яхонтов С.Е. (1965).
Древнекитайский язык / Drevnekitajskij jazyk
ld Chinese'. Moscow: Издательство "Наука" / Izdatel'stvo 'Nauka'. **translation of chapter 2 (Phonetics) by Jerry Norman
"Old Chinese Phonology"
''Early China'' 4 (1978–1979): 37–40. , . *谢・叶・雅洪托夫, 唐作藩 Táng Zuòfān, 胡双宝 Hú Shuāngbǎo (1986). 汉语史论集 orks on the history of Chinese Beijing: Peking University Press. .

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Yakhontov, Sergei 1926 births 2018 deaths Russian sinologists Linguists from Russia Saint Petersburg State University faculty