Edkhyam Tenishev

Tenishev was born April 25, 1921, in Penza to Rakhim Mubinovich Tenishev and Amina Alimovna Tenishev, members of a prominent Tatar family.{{Cite journal |last1=Dybo |first1=A.V. |author-link=Anna Dybo |last2=Sheymovich |first2=A.V. |date=2021 |title=Pamyati Edkhyama Rakhimovicha Tenisheva |script-title=ru:Памяти Эдхяма Рахимовича Тенишева |trans-title=Memories of Edkhyam Rakhimovich Tenishev |url=https://iling-ran.ru/library/rt/rt_2021_1-2.pdf |journal=Rossiyskaya Tyurkologiya |volume=30-31 |pages=5–29 |issn=2079-9160}} When he was 10, his parents relocated to Jalal-Abad, Kyrgyz SSR where he attended high school. In 1938 he began his academic career at the Russian University of Transport, where he focused on mathematics and published on Euler integrals. During the Second World War, Tenishev applied to fight at the front but was rejected due to poor eyesight and worked instead at a post office and at the radio center of a military factory. After the war he entered Leningrad State University's Oriental faculty, where he studied under a variety of linguists, philologists, and orientalists, including Sergey Malov, Ignaty Krachkovsky, Nikolai Dmitriev, and Vasily Struve. Under Malov, Tenishev's main advisor, he studied a variety of Turkic topics, including Orkhon Turkic, Old Uyghur, and modern Turkic languages. He defended his undergraduate thesis on Kipchak languages in 1949 and entered graduate school. His PhD thesis was devoted to the Old Uyghur translation of the Golden Light Sutra, which he defended in 1953.

In 1954 Tenishev began work in the Turkic languages section of the Institute of Linguistics of the Russian Academy of Sciences under the supervision of Nikolai Dmitriev. In 1956 he was sent to Beijing to assist Chinese scholars in documenting understudied Turkic languages in China. While there he taught courses in Turkology and prepared two Chinese language works on the topic. Along with his collaborators, he went on three expeditions to western China – Xinjiang in 1956, Qinghai in 1957, and Xunhua in 1958 – where he collected linguistic and ethnographic materials. These materials formed the basis of his descriptions of the Salar and Western Yugur languages and of his works on Uyghur dialects.

In the mid-1990s Tenishev began to focus on the Turkic languages of the Crimea, including Crimean Tatar, Crimean Karaim, and Krymchak, and he continued to publish comparative descriptions of the Turkic languages and their dialects.

Tenishev's work was not limited to linguistics or Turkology. He participated in projects studying the contacts between the Turkic languages and the Mongolic, Uralic, and Western European languages, as well as Tibetology. He also promoted the study of folklore and epic poetry, serving as the editor-in-chief of the series Эпос народов Евразии (Epic of the Peoples of Eurasia), which published volumes on the epic poetry of the Finns and Karelians, the Buriats (such as the poem Gesar), and the Kyrgyz (the poem Manas).

• 1998. Inducted into the Türkiye Cumhuriyeti Liyakat Nişanı (Order of Merit of the Republic of Turkey)
• 2001. Inducted into the Order of "Danaker" by A. Akaev, president of Kyrgyzstan{{Cite web |title=Ukaz Prezidenta KP ot 19 maya 2001 goda UP №167 "O nagrazhdenii ordenom "Danaker" Tenisheva E.R." |script-title=ru:Указ Президента КР от 19 мая 2001 года УП №167 "О награждении орденом "Данакер" Тенишева Э.Р." |trans-title=Decree of the President of the Kyrgyz Republic dated May 19, 2001 UP No. 167 "On awarding the Order of Danaker to E.R. Tenishev" |url=http://cbd.minjust.gov.kg/act/view/ru-ru/3404 |access-date=2022-05-24 |website=cbd.minjust.gov.kg}}
• 2015. A new street in Kazan's Sovetsky City district was named for Tenishev{{Cite web |date=2015-10-08 |title=V Sovetskom rayone Kazani poyavilis pyat novykh ulits |script-title=ru:В Советском районе Казани появились пять новых улиц |trans-title=Five new streets have appeared in Kazan's Sovetsky district |url=https://kzn.ru/meriya/press-tsentr/novosti/50724_v_sovetskom_rayone_kazani_poyavilis_pyat_novykh_ulits/ |access-date=2022-05-24 |website=Ofitsialny portal Kazani |language=ru}}

• {{Cite thesis |last=Тенишев |first=Э.Р. |script-title=ru:Грамматический очерк языка сочинения "Золотой блеск" |title=Grammatichesky ocherk yazyka sochineniya "Zolotoy blesk" |date=1953 |degree=PhD |publisher=Leningrad State University |trans-title=A grammatical outline of the language of the work "The Golden Light Sutra"}}
• {{Cite book |last1=Тенишев |first1=Э.Р. |title=Yazyk zheltykh uygurov |last2=Тодаева |first2=Б. Х. |publisher=Издательство "Наука" |year=1966 |location=Москва |language=ru |script-title=ru:Язык желтых уйгуров |trans-title=The language of the Yellow Uyghurs |oclc=4706386}}
• {{Cite book |last=Тенишев |first=Э.Р. |title=Stroy Salarskogo yazyka |publisher=Наука |year=1976 |location=Москва |language=ru |script-title=ru:Строй Саларского языка |trans-title=The structure of the Salar language |oclc=7749259}}
• {{Cite book |title=Sravnitelno-istoricheskaya grammatika tyurkskikh yazykov |publisher=Изд-во "Наука" |year=1984 |editor-last=Тенишев |editor-first=Э.Р. |location=Москва |language=ru |script-title=ru:Сравнительно-историческая грамматика тюркских языков |trans-title=A comparative-historical grammar of the Turkic languages |oclc=13008487}}
• {{Cite book |last=Тенишев |first=Э.Р. |title=Uygurskiy dialektny slovar |work=Наука |year=1990 |isbn=9785020110168 |location=Москва |language=ru |script-title=ru:Уйгурский диалектный словарь |trans-title=Uyghur dialect dictionary |oclc=24702768}}

{{Reflist}}

• {{Cite book |title=Edgem Rakhimovich Tenishev. Zhizn i tvorchestvo. 1921–2004 |publisher=Insan |year=2005 |isbn=5-85840-329-8 |editor-last=Тенишева |editor-first=Е. А. |location=Moscow |language=ru |script-title=ru:Эдгем Рахимович Тенишев. Жизнь и творчество. 1921–2004 |trans-title=Edgem Rakhimovich Tenishev. Life and works. 1921-2004}}
• {{Cite book |last1=Dybo |first1=A.V. |title=Otechestvennye lingvisty XX veka |last2=Sheymovich |first2=A.V. |date=2016 |publisher=Izadatelsky Dom YaSK |isbn=9785990833036 |editor-last=Popatov |editor-first=V.V. |location=Moscow |language=ru |script-title=ru:Отечественные лингвисты XX века |trans-title=Native linguists of the 20th Century |chapter=Edkhyam Rakhimovich Tenishev |script-chapter=ru:Эдхям Рахимович Тенишев |oclc=983727295}}

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Category:1921 births

Category:2004 deaths

Category:Linguists of Turkic languages

Category:Russian philologists

Category:Russian orientalists

Category:Corresponding Members of the USSR Academy of Sciences