Sergei Lvovich Nikolaev (russian: Серге́й Льво́вич Никола́ев; born 25 December 1954) is a Soviet and Russian

linguist Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. It is called a scientific study because it entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise analysis of all aspects of language, particularly its nature and structure. Linguis ...

, specialist in comparative historical linguistics, Slavic accentology and dialectology. He is the author of a number of books and articles on

Indo-European studies Indo-European studies is a field of linguistics and an interdisciplinary field of study dealing with Indo-European languages, both current and extinct. The goal of those engaged in these studies is to amass information about the hypothetical pro ...

accentology Accentology involves a systematic analysis of word or phrase stress. Sub-areas of accentology include Germanic accentology, Balto-Slavic accentology, Indo-European accentology, and Japanese accentology. See also *Proto-Slavic accent Proto-Slavic ...

, and Slavic dialectology. Nikolaev is

Doctor Nauk Doctor of Sciences ( rus, доктор наук, p=ˈdoktər nɐˈuk, abbreviated д-р наук or д. н.; uk, доктор наук; bg, доктор на науките; be, доктар навук) is a higher doctoral degree in the Russi ...

in Philological Sciences. He is also a major figure in the

Moscow School of Comparative Linguistics The Moscow School of Comparative Linguistics (also called the Nostratic School) is a school of linguistics based in Moscow, Russia that is known for its work in . Formerly based at Moscow State University, it is currently centered at the (Institut ...

Biography

Nikolaev graduated from the philological faculty of

Tver State University Tver State University (russian: Тверской государственный университет) is a university in the city of Tver and one of the largest universities in the Tver Oblast, of which Tver is the administrative center An ad ...

and

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 ...

. Since 1986, he has worked at the Institute for Slavic and Balkan studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Since 1987, he has been the head of regular dialectological expeditions in the area of East Slavic

subdialect Subdialect (from Latin , "under", and Ancient Greek , "discourse") is a linguistic term designating a dialectological category between the levels of dialect and idiolect. Subdialects are basic subdivisions of a dialect. Subdialects can be divided ...

s. In 1992, he received a

doctoral degree A doctorate (from Latin ''docere'', "to teach"), doctor's degree (from Latin ''doctor'', "teacher"), or doctoral degree is an academic degree awarded by universities and some other educational institutions, derived from the ancient formalism ''li ...

with a dissertation comprising the totality of his works, and now heads the group of Slavic glottogenesis.

Contribution to linguistics

Sergei Nikolaev is a specialist in Slavic and Indo-European comparative historical linguistics. The scope of studies covers Slavic,

Balto-Slavic The Balto-Slavic languages form a branch of the Indo-European family of languages, traditionally comprising the Baltic and Slavic languages. Baltic and Slavic languages share several linguistic traits not found in any other Indo-European branc ...

and Indo-European historical

, comparative

grammar In linguistics, the grammar of a natural language is its set of structure, structural constraints on speakers' or writers' composition of clause (linguistics), clauses, phrases, and words. The term can also refer to the study of such constraint ...

North Caucasian languages The North Caucasian languages, sometimes called simply Caucasic, is a proposed language family consisting of a pair of well established language families spoken in the Caucasus, predominantly in the north, consisting of the Northwest Caucasian ...

, hypothetical Sino-Caucasian macro-family of languages, hypothetical

Amerindian The Indigenous peoples of the Americas are the inhabitants of the Americas before the arrival of the European settlers in the 15th century, and the ethnic groups who now identify themselves with those peoples. Many Indigenous peoples of the Am ...

macro-family. Nikolaev connects the linguogeography and historical dialectology of Slavic languages with the problems of . In East Slavic dialectology, he established a number of the oldest (Late Proto-Slavic) dialect

isogloss An isogloss, also called a heterogloss (see Etymology below), is the geographic boundary of a certain linguistic feature, such as the pronunciation of a vowel, the meaning of a word, or the use of some morphological or syntactic feature. Major d ...

es. Reconstruction of the placement of these isoglossae on the territory of the oldest Slavic settlement showed their connection with the archaeological areas of large Proto-Slavic tribal associations. As a result of the field studies of the East Slavic dialects, the Institute has collected an East Slavic phonetic library and an archive of

dialect The term dialect (from Latin , , from the Ancient Greek word , 'discourse', from , 'through' and , 'I speak') can refer to either of two distinctly different types of Linguistics, linguistic phenomena: One usage refers to a variety (linguisti ...

recordings. Nikolaev is the author of the etymological dictionary of

(together 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 hypotheti ...

), one of the authors of the series "Fundamentals of Slavic accentology", a participant in the international Internet projects "Evolution of language" and "tower of Babel" (etymological databases; he created a comparative database on Indo-European languages and databases on

Finno-Ugric Finno-Ugric ( or ; ''Fenno-Ugric'') or Finno-Ugrian (''Fenno-Ugrian''), is a traditional grouping of all languages in the Uralic language family except the Samoyedic languages. Its formerly commonly accepted status as a subfamily of Uralic is ba ...

and Amerindian languages). For more than 20 years, Nikolaev has been the leader and organizer of complex linguistic expeditions to the East Slavic dialects (the Carpathians, the Russian Northwest,

Belarus Belarus,, , ; alternatively and formerly known as Byelorussia (from Russian ). officially the Republic of Belarus,; rus, Республика Беларусь, Respublika Belarus. is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by R ...

Polesie Polesia, Polesie, or Polesye, uk, Полісся (Polissia), pl, Polesie, russian: Полесье (Polesye) is a natural and historical region that starts from the farthest edge of Central Europe and encompasses Eastern Europe, including East ...

) and to the archaic Old

Shtokavian Shtokavian or Štokavian (; sh-Latn, štokavski / sh-Cyrl, italics=no, штокавски, ) is the prestige dialect of the pluricentric Serbo-Croatian language and the basis of its Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian and Montenegrin standards. It ...

dialects of the

Serbo-Croatian language Serbo-Croatian () – also called Serbo-Croat (), Serbo-Croat-Bosnian (SCB), Bosnian-Croatian-Serbian (BCS), and Bosnian-Croatian-Montenegrin-Serbian (BCMS) – is a South Slavic language and the primary language of Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia and ...

(

Slavonia Slavonia (; hr, Slavonija) is, with Dalmatia, Croatia proper, and Istria, one of the four historical regions of Croatia. Taking up the east of the country, it roughly corresponds with five Croatian counties: Brod-Posavina, Osijek-Baranja ...

, together with Croatian colleagues), author of special field programs on East Slavic historical dialectology. Nikolaev was nominated three times as a Corresponding Member of the

Russian Academy of Sciences The Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS; russian: Росси́йская акаде́мия нау́к (РАН) ''Rossíyskaya akadémiya naúk'') consists of the national academy of Russia; a network of scientific research institutes from across t ...

. In 2004, he was awarded the Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Society (

Montreal Montreal ( ; officially Montréal, ) is the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, second-most populous city in Canada and List of towns in Quebec, most populous city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

). In 2014, after placing the accents, Nikolaev confirmed (with a significant transformation and many clarifications) 's idea of syncretic polyrhythm in ''

The Tale of Igor's Campaign ''The Tale of Igor's Campaign'' ( orv, Слово о пълкѹ Игоревѣ, translit=Slovo o pŭlku Igorevě) is an anonymous epic poem written in the Old East Slavic language. The title is occasionally translated as ''The Tale of the Campaig ...

''.''Nikolaev, S. L.'' (2014)
Лексическая стратификация «Слова о полку Игореве»
International Journal of Slavic Studies ''Slověne = Словѣне''; №2.

Contribution to the study of butterflies

As a boy, he first discovered in 1968 a significant population of '' Polyommatus damone'' in the Altai. In 1970, in

Tuva Tuva (; russian: Тува́) or Tyva ( tyv, Тыва), officially the Republic of Tuva (russian: Респу́блика Тыва́, r=Respublika Tyva, p=rʲɪˈspublʲɪkə tɨˈva; tyv, Тыва Республика, translit=Tyva Respublika ...

, he caught two new

taxa In biology, a taxon (back-formation from ''taxonomy''; plural taxa) is a group of one or more populations of an organism or organisms seen by taxonomists to form a unit. Although neither is required, a taxon is usually known by a particular nam ...

of the

Satyrinae The Satyrinae, the satyrines or satyrids, commonly known as the browns, are a subfamily of the Nymphalidae (brush-footed butterflies). They were formerly considered a distinct family, Satyridae. This group contains nearly half of the known divers ...

genus ''

Oeneis ''Oeneis'' (the Arctics or graylings) is a butterfly genus of the Satyrinae. All but one of its members are Arctic, sub-Arctic or high-altitude alpine in distribution. Some of the members of the genus are among the butterflies that can get along ...

'' (described by

Yuri Korshunov Yuri Petrovich Korshunov (russian: Юрий Петрович Коршунов; 22 September 1933, Chernorechka Village near Novosibirsk — 1 August 2002, Novosibirsk) was a Russian entomologist who specialised in Lepidoptera. Korshunov was a sc ...

as '' Oeneis judini'' and '' O. shurmaki''). During 1980–1985, he collected a large collection of

Lepidoptera Lepidoptera ( ) is an order (biology), order of insects that includes butterfly, butterflies and moths (both are called lepidopterans). About 180,000 species of the Lepidoptera are described, in 126 Family (biology), families and 46 Taxonomic r ...

in the

Tver Oblast Tver Oblast (russian: Тверска́я о́бласть, ''Tverskaya oblast'', ), from 1935 to 1990 known as Kalinin Oblast (), is a federal subject of Russia (an oblast). Its administrative center is the city of Tver. It was named after Mikhai ...

, now located in the Siberian Zoological Museum, and described the presumably new taxon '' Erebia polonina''. Together with

, he wrote articles on North Asian ''

'' and ''

Erebia ''Erebia'' is a Holarctic genus of brush-footed butterflies, family Nymphalidae. Most of the about 90–100 species (see also below) are dark brown or black in color, with reddish-brown to orange or more rarely yellowish wing blotches or ban ...

'' (the last article includes ''E. polonina'').

References

Notes

Bibliography

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Nikolaev, Sergei Linguists from Russia Linguists from the Soviet Union 20th-century linguists 1954 births Living people Slavists Paleolinguists Full Members of the Russian Academy of Sciences Long-range comparative linguists Moscow School of Comparative Linguistics