Iushmanov, Nikolai

Born Feb. 12 (24), 1896, in St. Petersburg; died Apr. 2, 1946, in Leningrad. Soviet linguist. Corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR (1943).

Iushmanov was a research worker at the Institute of Language and Thought of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR from 1931 to 1946. In 1911, as an amateur linguist, he began his scholarly career with the publication of a series of articles on interlinguis-tics; in them, he discussed the problem of creating an international artificial language and related issues. He continued his studies in this area in several subsequent works, including The Grammar of Foreign Languages (1933), A Key to the Latin-alphabet Languages of the World (1941), and An Identification Handbook of Languages (1941). Iushmanov’s principal works were devoted to Semitic languages. They included The Grammar of the Arabic Literary Language (1928), The Structure of the Amharic Language (1936), and A Short Grammar of the Arabic Language (published 1964).

Iushmanov was awarded the Order of the Red Banner of Labor.