Essays in the History of Languages and Linguistics: Dedicated to Marek Stachowski on the Occasion of His 60th Birthday

Abstract

Many of those who will read these pages are fully aware of Professor Marek Stachowski’s scholarly achievements up to the present. How versatile and appreciated an author he has been is illustrated quite perfectly by the table of contents of the present tome. Indeed, Professor Stachowski is commonly regarded as a Turkologist whose varied academic career has been marked by a consistent approach to linguistic analysis: utilising historical-linguistic and philological methods while at the same time paying special attention to the historical background, cultural context, chronology, and the geography of linguistic contacts. Certainly, Marek Stachowski has helped broaden our knowledge of the history of Turkic languages and improve the methodology bequeathed to us by earlier generations. Additionally, however, thanks to his broad interdisciplinary approach – combining the experience and knowledge of a Turkologist with, primarily, the expertise of Uralists, Slavicists, Arabists, Iranists, Mongolists, and specialists in Yeniseic, Carpathian and Balkan studies – Marek Stachowski has been able to address issues lying beyond his main field of expertise. In fact, during his career he has highlighted just how relevant Turkology is to these research areas and, just as importantly, how much Turkology has been enriched by them. Thus, it would perhaps not be amiss to say that the central theme of his work has been its wide-ranging, multifaceted outlook.