Gevork
Jahukian, together with others of his generation, continued the
tradition of Armenian linguistics started by Hrachia Ajarian and made
important contributions to many aspects of the study of the Armenian
language.
He was born on April 1, 1920 in the village of Shahnazar, district of Kalinino (nowadays it is the village of Metzavan in the district of Tashir). After finishing high school in Yerevan in 1937, he entered Yerevan State University and graduated in 1941. Then, like many young people in Armenia, he was drafted into the Soviet army and served in World War II from 1942-1943.
He was born on April 1, 1920 in the village of Shahnazar, district of Kalinino (nowadays it is the village of Metzavan in the district of Tashir). After finishing high school in Yerevan in 1937, he entered Yerevan State University and graduated in 1941. Then, like many young people in Armenia, he was drafted into the Soviet army and served in World War II from 1942-1943.
After
returning from the war, he entered his alma mater and taught at the
Faculty of Romano-Germanic Philology for sixty years. He was a senior
lecturer from 1945-1949, head of the chair of Foreign Languages
(1948-1957) and of Romano-Germanic philology (1957-1970), and professor
of the chair of General Linguistics (1970 onwards). From 1948-1957 he
also taught at the Institute of Russian and Foreign Languages (today
renamed Yerevan State Linguistic University) “Valery Briusov.” He taught
Classical and Modern Armenian, Latin, history of linguistics,
comparative grammar, general linguistics, and other subjects.
He
defended his first doctorate in 1947 and his second doctorate in 1955.
In 1958 he received the title of professor. Shortly after earning his
first doctorate, he entered the Institute of Linguistics “Hrachia
Ajarian” of the Academy of Sciences. He was a senior researcher from
1949-1950 and 1959-1962, and in 1962 he became director of the institute
until his death. He was elected a corresponding member of the Academy
of Sciences in 1968 and full member in 1974. He received the title of
emeritus worker in 1965.
Jahukian
was the author of more than twenty books and close to a hundred
scholarly articles. He became the most well-known authority in Armenian
linguistics, particularly in the field of comparative grammar and
history of the Armenian language, from the late 1950s onwards. He
authored many articles and a series of remarkable monographs, such as The System of Declension in Old Armenian and Its Origin (in Armenian, 1959), Essays on the History of the Pre-Literal Period of the Armenian Language (in Russian, 1967), Comparative Grammar of the Armenian Language (in Russian, 1982), and his most important work, History of the Armenian Language: Pre-Literal Period (in Armenian, 1987), for which he earned the State Prize of Armenia in 1988. He
researched the relations of the Armenian language with many old and
early Indo-European and non-Indo-European language, and made important
contributions to the etymology of many Armenian words. His Armenian Etymological Dictionary, posthumously published in 2010, became a continuation and an update of the classical multi-volume work of Ajarian.
He
also dealt with issues of Armenian dialects and Modern Armenian, and of
general linguistics. Some of his most important works are History of Linguistics (1960-1962), History of Linguistics (1960-1962), Introduction to Armenian Dialectology (1972), Principles of the Theory of Contemporary Armenian (1974), among others. His works in general linguistics led him to formulate the
idea of an universal theory of language, first published in Russian
(1999) and then in English (Universal Theory of Language, 2003).
Jahukian passed away on July 6, 2005, in Yerevan.
