Aleksandr Matveyev

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Aleksandr Konstantinovich Matveyev (Russian: Александр Константинович Матвеев, born in 1926) - Russian linguist known for his works in toponymics (branch of linguistics studying toponyms), onomastics (studies of proper names) and etymology (origins and semantical development of words).

[edit] Biography

Aleksandr Matveyev was born in Yekaterinburg but because of the World War II he entered and graduated from the Khabarovsk University. Since 1952 he works at the Ural State University in Yekaterinburg. In 1970 he defended his second thesis (Russian degree of doctor nauk) and became professor of the philological department. Since 1961 - chief of the chair of Russian language and general linguistics at the Ural State University. In 1988 he received the title of Scientist Emeritus of Russia. In 1991 he was elected corresponding member of he Russian Academy of Sciences.

Being the chief of the Ural dialectological and toponimical expeditions he contributed to the creation of a huge collection of toponyms of the Northen part of Russia. His study of this material revealed a great number of substrate phenomena from finno-ugric languages and extended our knowledge of the formal and semantical development of toponyms having deepened the methods of toponymics.

[edit] Main works

Aleksandr Matveyev is the author of several books including Finno-Ugric borrowings in Russian dialect of the Northern Urals (Sverdlovsk, 1959), Methods of toponymic researches (Sverdlovsk, 1986), Substrate toponymics of Northen Russia (vol. 1, 2, Yekaterinburg, 2001) and many popular books about language for non-linguists. Prof. A. Matveyev is the author of 270 publications. He is the editor-in-chief and member of editorial committees of several periodicals (including Onomastics and Toponymical investigations) and dictionaries (Dictionnary of Russian dialects of the Middle Urals, Dictionnary of dialects of Northern Russia, Materials to a Dictionnary of finno-ugric borrowings in the dialects of Northern Russia).