Alexander Vladimirovich Vovin (; 27 January 1961 – 8 April 2022) was a Soviet-born Russian-American
linguist
Linguistics is the scientific study of language. The areas of linguistic analysis are syntax (rules governing the structure of sentences), semantics (meaning), Morphology (linguistics), morphology (structure of words), phonetics (speech sounds ...
and
philologist
Philology () is the study of language in oral and written historical sources. It is the intersection of textual criticism, literary criticism, history, and linguistics with strong ties to etymology. Philology is also defined as the study of ...
, and director of studies at the
School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences (EHESS) in
Paris
Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...
, France. He was a linguist, well known for his research on East Asian languages.
Education
Alexander Vovin earned his M.A. in structural and applied linguistics from the
Saint Petersburg State University
Saint Petersburg State University (SPBGU; ) is a public research university in Saint Petersburg, Russia, and one of the oldest and most prestigious universities in Russia. Founded in 1724 by a decree of Peter the Great, the university from the be ...
in 1983, and his Ph.D. in historical Japanese linguistics and premodern Japanese literature from the same university in 1987, with a doctoral dissertation on the ''
Hamamatsu Chūnagon Monogatari'' (ca. 1056).
Career
After serving as a
Junior Researcher at the St. Petersburg Institute of Oriental Studies (1987–1990), he moved to the United States where he held positions as assistant professor of Japanese at the
University of Michigan
The University of Michigan (U-M, U of M, or Michigan) is a public university, public research university in Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States. Founded in 1817, it is the oldest institution of higher education in the state. The University of Mi ...
(1990–1994), assistant professor at
Miami University
Miami University (informally Miami of Ohio or simply Miami) is a public university, public research university in Oxford, Ohio, United States. Founded in 1809, it is the second-oldest List of colleges and universities in Ohio, university in Ohi ...
(1994–1995), and assistant professor and then associate professor at the
University of Hawaiʻi
The University of Hawaiʻi System is a public college and university system in Hawaii. The system confers associate, bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degrees through three universities, seven community colleges, an employment training center, ...
(1995–2003). He was appointed full professor at the University of Hawaiʻi in 2003, and continued working there until 2014. He was visiting professor at the
International Research Center for Japanese Studies,
Kyoto
Kyoto ( or ; Japanese language, Japanese: , ''Kyōto'' ), officially , is the capital city of Kyoto Prefecture in the Kansai region of Japan's largest and most populous island of Honshu. , the city had a population of 1.46 million, making it t ...
from 2001 to 2002 and again in 2008, a visiting professor at the
Ruhr University Bochum, Germany (2008–2009), and a visiting professor at the
National Institute for Japanese Language and Linguistics (NINJAL) in Tokyo, Japan from May to August 2012.
In 2014, Vovin accepted the position of Director of Studies at the Centre de recherches linguistiques sur l'Asie orientale (CRLAO) unit of the
EHESS, where he remained until his death in 2022.
Alexander Vovin specialized in Japanese historical linguistics (with emphasis on
etymology
Etymology ( ) is the study of the origin and evolution of words—including their constituent units of sound and meaning—across time. In the 21st century a subfield within linguistics, etymology has become a more rigorously scientific study. ...
,
morphology, and
phonology
Phonology (formerly also phonemics or phonematics: "phonemics ''n.'' 'obsolescent''1. Any procedure for identifying the phonemes of a language from a corpus of data. 2. (formerly also phonematics) A former synonym for phonology, often pre ...
), and Japanese philology of the
Nara period
The of the history of Japan covers the years from 710 to 794. Empress Genmei established the capital of Heijō-kyō (present-day Nara). Except for a five-year period (740–745), when the capital was briefly moved again, it remained the capita ...
(710–792), and to a lesser extent of the
Heian period
The is the last division of classical Japanese history, running from 794 to 1185. It followed the Nara period, beginning when the 50th emperor, Emperor Kammu, moved the capital of Japan to Heian-kyō (modern Kyoto). means in Japanese. It is a ...
(792–1192). His last project before his death involved the complete academic translation into English of the
Man'yōshū
The is the oldest extant collection of Japanese (poetry in Classical Japanese), compiled sometime after AD 759 during the Nara period. The anthology is one of the most revered of Japan's poetic compilations. The compiler, or the last in ...
(ca. 759), the earliest and the largest premodern
Japanese poetic anthology, alongside the critical edition of the original text and commentaries. He also researched the moribund
Ainu language in northern Japan, and worked on
Inner Asian languages and
Kra–Dai languages
The Kra–Dai languages ( , also known as Tai–Kadai and Daic ), are a language family in mainland Southeast Asia, southern China, and northeastern India. All languages in the family are tonal language, tonal, including Thai language, Thai a ...
, especially those preserved only in Chinese transcription, as well as on
Old and
Middle Korean texts.
His last work, published in 2021, is on the
''Bussokuseki no Uta'' of
Yakushi-ji temple in
Nara
The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) is an independent agency of the United States government within the executive branch, charged with the preservation and documentation of government and historical records. It is also task ...
. In the same year, a
festschrift
In academia, a ''Festschrift'' (; plural, ''Festschriften'' ) is a book honoring a respected person, especially an academic, and presented during their lifetime. It generally takes the form of an edited volume, containing contributions from the h ...
was dedicated to Vovin on his 60th birthday.
He had been engaged in coordinating the ''Etymological Dictionary of the Japonic Languages'' from 2019 to the time of his death in 2022, with cooperation from several universities and European Union funding of €2,470,200,00. However, the project was terminated upon his death.
Personal life
Vovin was married twice: first to Varvara G. Lebedeva-Vovina (née Churakova), with whom they have a son, Aleksei, born in 1982, and the second time to fellow Japanese language researcher Sambi Ishisaki (石崎賛美) in 2000.
Two more children were born to the second marriage.
He died on 8 April 2022, at the age of 61, from cancer.
Publications
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*Vovin, Alexander. (2000). Did the Xiong-nu speak a Yeniseian language?. ''Central Asiatic Journal, 44''(1), pages 87–104. .
*Vovin, Alexander. (2001). Japanese, Korean and Tungusic. Evidence for genetic relationship from verbal morphology. David B. Honey and David C. Wright (eds.), pages 183–202.
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*Vovin, Alexander. (2003). Once again on lenition in Middle Korean. ''Korean Studies, 27'', pages 85–107. .
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*, 20 volumes
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*Vovin, Alexander. (2011)
Why Japonic is not demonstrably related to 'Altaic' or Korean In ''Historical Linguistics in the Asia-Pacific region and the position of Japanese, The International Conference on Historical Linguistics (ICHL) XX''.
*Vovin, Alexander. & McCraw, D. (2011)
Old Turkic Kinship Terms in Early Middle Chinese ''Türk Dili Araştırmaları Yıllığı Belleten, 59''(1), 105–116.
*Vovin, Alexander. (2017)
Koreanic loanwords in Khitan and their importance in the decipherment of the latter ''Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae, 70''(2), pages 207–215.
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References
External links
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Vovin, Alexander
1961 births
2022 deaths
Russian emigrants to the United States
Soviet Jews
Deaths from cancer in France
Russian Japanologists
American Japanologists
Scholars of Japanese literature
Miami University faculty
University of Michigan faculty
University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa faculty
Linguists of Puyŏ languages
Linguists of Ainu
Linguists of Yeniseian languages
Linguists of Xiongnu
Historical linguists
Linguists of Japanese
Linguists of Korean
Academics from Saint Petersburg