tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11363545703076281812007-07-05T23:56:41.292-06:00jdbengtBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1136354570307628181.post-12158411967269893672007-04-15T01:01:00.000-06:002007-06-04T01:42:08.265-06:00<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://jdbengt.net/uploaded_images/Starostin-2jun2005-786604-716375.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="http://jdbengt.net/uploaded_images/Starostin-2jun2005-786604-716373.jpg" alt="" border="0"></a><br /><font size="2">We continue to mourn the loss of my friend Sergei A. Starostin (1953-2005), taken from us far too soon. His friend Ilia Peiros, another Russian linguist of international reputation, said: "Before his death he was probably the best comparative linguist in the world. He had an ability to learn languages quickly and well, to see patterns in their relationships and order them into systems, and to work extremely hard. Other linguists know a lot of languages but aren't productive. He was both. He was unique."<br /><br />Václav Blažek and I wrote a <a href="http://jdbengt.net/06Starostin.pdf" target="_blank">tribute to Sergei</a> (PDF 154KB) for the Journal of Indo-European Studies.</font>jdbengt