Yuri Andreyevich Smirnov

Who is Yuri Andreyevich Smirnov?

Yuri Andreyevich Smirnov was a Russian linguist.

Dr. Smirnov was born in the U.S.S.R. in 1923, and, after finishing college, he joined the army. After the Second World War he left the army and was admitted to the Institute of Oriental Studies of the USSR Academy of Sciences in linguistics, where he was primarily interested in the Punjabi language, which he later wrote his thesis on. After getting his Ph. D., Dr. Smirnov visited India in 1985 as a linguist, where he continued to study languages. His interest in the Saraiki language led him to learn some of it from immigrants from that region. In 1986 he presented a report of his research in Patiala University, which published the report. The head of the Punjabi department, Dr. Sirbinder Singh, declared Dr. Smirnov's research about compound sentences in Punjabi to be extraordinary, and praised it as an important addition to the field of Punjabi grammar, etymology and syntax. The Indian Daily Tribune also praised Dr. Smirnov's work on the Punjabi language. During that visit, Dr. Smirnov gave extensive lectures to the university students at Chandi Garh University. In 1970, Dr. Smirnov wrote The Lahndi Language, a book on the Saraiki language in Russian, which was published in Moscow in 1975 and was later translated into English. In 1978 Dr. Smirnov was awarded a doctorate of literature. His thesis paper was “Theoretical Discoveries in Punjabi Language“. In addition to this work, Dr. Smirnov worked on the theoretical and linguistic problems in Indo-Aryan languages. Dr Smirnov is considered to be a specialist in Saraiki, ‘Dogri, Punjabi and Rajasthani languages.