Born Feb. 14, 1902. Soviet linguist, corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR (1958). Professor at Moscow State University (1937).
Avanesov’s major works are dedicated to historical and descriptive Russian dialectology, the history of the Russian language, historical and descriptive phonetics, phonological theory, and Russian orthoepy and orthography. His book Outline of Russian Dialectology (part 1, 1949) presents a system of the phonemes of all the Russian dialects. He directed the compilation of the Atlas of Russian Popular Dialects of the Central Oblasts East of Moscow (parts 1–2, 1957) and the Dictionary of Old Russian of the llth-14th Centuries (1966).