Vaso (Vasily) Ivanovich Abaev ( os, Абайты Иваны фырт Васо; russian: Василий Иванович Абаев, also transliterated as Abayev and Abayti; 15 December 1900 – 18 March 2001) was an ethnically Ossetian Soviet linguist specializing in

Iranian Iranian may refer to: * Iran, a sovereign state * Iranian peoples, the speakers of the Iranian languages. The term Iranic peoples is also used for this term to distinguish the pan ethnic term from Iranian, used for the people of Iran * Iranian lan ...

, particularly Ossetian linguistics.

Biography

Abaev was born in the village of Kobi,

Georgia Georgia most commonly refers to: * Georgia (country), a country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia * Georgia (U.S. state), a state in the Southeast United States Georgia may also refer to: Places Historical states and entities * Related to the ...

Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended the Great Northern War. ...

. He studied at the Gymnasium of

Tiflis Tbilisi ( ; ka, თბილისი ), in some languages still known by its pre-1936 name Tiflis ( ), is the capital and the largest city of Georgia, lying on the banks of the Kura River with a population of approximately 1.5 million pe ...

in 1910-1918 and graduated from the

Leningrad 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 1925. He studied Iranian philology under Friedman's direction and, as many other young linguists, fell under the influence of the controversial

Nicholas Marr Nikolai Yakovlevich Marr (, ''Nikolay Yakovlevich Marr''; , ''Nikoloz Iak'obis dze Mari''; — 20 December 1934) was a Georgian-born historian and linguist who gained a reputation as a scholar of the Caucasus during the 1910s before embarking ...

, joining Marr's Yaphetic Institute in 1928. After Marr's death, he moved to broad Iranian topics and field work in Ossetia until the end of

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

. In 1945 he moved back to Leningrad where he published his work on the Nart sagas, a dictionary and grammar book of Ossetian. With

Joseph Stalin Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili; – 5 March 1953) was a Georgian revolutionary and Soviet political leader who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. He held power as General Secretar ...

's condemnation of Marr's linguistic theories the Yaphetic Institute was purged, but Abaev was spared. Starting with the 1950s, Abayev became internationally famous as the leading authority on Scythian and Sarmatian linguistics. Assisted by his friend, Georges Dumézil, Abaev demonstrated connections between the

Scythian languages The Scythian languages are a group of Eastern Iranian languages of the classical and late antique period (the Middle Iranian period), spoken in a vast region of Eurasia by the populations belonging to the Scythian cultures and their descend ...

and modern Ossetian. He also pointed out some striking similarities between Ossetian and Celtic mythology. In 1960s, he also became known as a determined opponent of structuralism, which he compared to "dehumanization" of linguistics. His magnum opus, the '' Etymological Dictionary of Ossetian Language'', which is based on the material of 190 languages and dialects, was published in four volumes between 1959 and 1989 and became known outside the USSR as well. He died at the age of 100 in

Saint Petersburg 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 ...

. Several years later, a monument to him was unveiled in

Tskhinval Tskhinvali ( ka, ცხინვალი ) or Tskhinval ( os, Цхинвал, Чъреба, Tskhinval, Chreba, ; rus, Цхинва́л(и), r=Tskhinvál(i), ) is the capital of the disputed ''de facto'' independent Republic of South Ossetia, in ...

Honours and awards

Order of Merit for the Fatherland Order, ORDER or Orders may refer to: * Categorization, the process in which ideas and objects are recognized, differentiated, and understood * Heterarchy, a system of organization wherein the elements have the potential to be ranked a number of d ...

, 3rd class (December 20, 2000) - for outstanding contribution to the development of national science and training of highly qualified and in connection with the 100th anniversary of the birth; 4th class (December 7, 1995) - for services to the state, the progress made in work *

Order of the Red Banner of Labour The Order of the Red Banner of Labour (russian: Орден Трудового Красного Знамени, translit=Orden Trudovogo Krasnogo Znameni) was an order of the Soviet Union established to honour great deeds and services to th ...

* Twice winner of the prize K. Khetagurov * Honoured Worker of Science of Georgia and North Ossetia *

USSR State Prize The USSR State Prize (russian: links=no, Государственная премия СССР, Gosudarstvennaya premiya SSSR) was the Soviet Union's state honor. It was established on 9 September 1966. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, t ...

- 1981

Footnotes

References

Alans
Encyclopædia Iranica, V. Abaev and H. W. Bailey

TITUS (Thesaurus Indogermanischer Text- und Sprachmaterialien)
"Grammar of the Ossetian language", by Abaev

External links

* , four volumes plus index
''Alans''
in Encyclopædia Iranica by V. Abaev and H. W. Bailey __NOTOC__ {{DEFAULTSORT:Abaev, Vasily 1900 births 2001 deaths 20th-century archaeologists 20th-century linguists People from Mtskheta-Mtianeti People from Tiflis Governorate Ossetian people Linguists from Russia Russian archaeologists Caucasologists Etymologists Honorary Members of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences Russian centenarians Men centenarians Recipients of the Order "For Merit to the Fatherland", 3rd class Recipients of the Order "For Merit to the Fatherland", 4th class Recipients of the Order of the Red Banner of Labour Recipients of the USSR State Prize