Linguist (b. 1900, Üçüm / Kazan /
Tatarstan – d. 1964, İstanbul). He completed his primary and elementary
education in Russia. He published poetry and short stories in the review Yeşlik Tanı that he published with his
friends. He went to Berlin from Manchuria where he was wounded in World War I
and graduated from Berlin University, Faculty of Philosophy. He received his
PhD while he was the assistant of the German Turkologist W. Bang. He worked as
a researcher at the Berlin Sciences Academy. He became an associate professor
at Berlin University, School of Eastern Languages (1931).
He was invited to Turkey by the
Ministry of Education in 1933 and appointed as a professor of Old Turkish at
İstanbul University, Faculty of Literature, Department of Turkish Language and
Literature. He became the director of the Turkology Institution in 1943 and
became a distinguished professor in 1955. He was elected to many scientific
institutions worldwide and in Turkey. With his studies, he laid the foundation
of research on Turkish dialects.
WORKS:
Zur Heilkunde der Uiguren (Medicine in the
Uighurs, 2 volumes, 1930-32), Die Legonde
Von Oghuz Kaghan (The Oğuz Khan Legend, 1932; with W. Bang, 1936), Turkische Turfan Texte (Turkish Turfan
Texts, with W. Bang and A. Von Gabain, 1934-36), Vekayî / Babür’ün Hatıratı (Memoirs of Babür, 2 volumes, 1943-46), Kutadgu Bilig (Wisdom
of Royal Glory, 3 volumes, text 1947; translation 1959; index 1973), Atabetü’l-Hakayık (Death of the Truth, 1951), Türk Şivelerinin Tasnifi (Classification of Turkish Dialects,
1953), Eski Türk Şiiri (Old Turkish
Poetry, 1965), Babürnâme (Book of
Babür, 3 volumes, 1970).