Sergey Ozhegov 120th Birthday谷歌标志

Sergey Ozhegov's 120th Birthday谷歌标志
22 September 2020

Today’s Doodle celebrates Russian linguist, lexicographer, professor, and author Sergey Ozhegov on his 120th birthday. Ozhegov published one of the first-ever Russian dictionaries, the “Dictionary of the Russian Language,” which is still held up as a standard of Russian linguistics today.

Sergey Ivanovich Ozhegov was born on this day in 1900 in the western Russian village of Kamennoe. As a young teenager, he relocated with his family to St. Petersburg, where he went on to pursue his undergraduate education. Following his passion for linguistics, Ozhegov began to compile a “Russian Language Explanatory Dictionary” as well as a dictionary dedicated to the language playwright Aleksander Ostrovsky used in his work. After graduation, Ozhegov passed down his expertise as a lettered university professor and spent years honing his early ideas into his magnum opus: the “Dictionary of the Russian Language.”

Released in 1949, the first edition of the dictionary contained 50,000 words and quickly made an impact on Russia’s logophiles. Soon, readers began to ask for even more Russian words and phrases to be added, and the accommodating Ozhegov attempted to address each request. He oversaw eight updated editions throughout his career, and modern versions of the influential reference have grown to include some 80,000 words!

But Ozhegov’s dictionary alone didn’t define his career; he also founded the Standard of Speech Center to provide language coaching for TV actors, and today the building where he lived carries on his legacy as the Russian Language Institute.

Thank you, Sergey Ozhegov, for mapping the uncharted territory of the Russian linguistic landscape.