Linguist, Ph.D., professor, academician of the Academy of Sciences of the ASSR, and honored figure of science of the ASSR
Jahukyan was born on April 1, 1920, in Shahnazar village of Kalinino region. In 1937 after graduating from secondary school No. 1 in Yerevan, he entered YSU Faculty of Philology and graduated in 1941. In 1941-1943, Jahukyan participated in the Great Patriotic War.
From 1945-1949 G. Jahukyan was a senior lecturer at the Faculty of Philology of YSU, from 1948-1957 he was the head of the Department of Foreign Languages, and from 1957-1970, he led the Department of Romano-Germanic Philology. From 1970, Jahukyan was a professor at the Department of General Linguistics.
In 1947, G. Jahukyan defended the candidate, and in 1955, his doctoral theses. In 1958, he became a professor. From 1949-1950, and 1959-1962, Jahukyan served as a senior researcher at Hr. Acharyan Language Institute, from 1962 until the end of his life, was the director of the same institute. In 1968, he was elected a correspondent member of the Academy of Sciences of the ASSR, and in 1974 - an academician.
G. Jahukyan brought his invaluable contribution to the foundation of modern Armenian linguistics. Among the respectable scientific heritage left by the outstanding linguist are "The Inflectional System of Ancient Armenian and Its Origin" (Yerevan, 1959), "Overview of the History of the Prescriptive Period of the Armenian Language" (Russian, Yerevan, 1967), "Comparative Grammar of the Armenian Language" ( Russian, Yerevan, 1982), "History of the Armenian language: prescriptive period" (Yerevan, 1987) and other voluminous works and numerous articles.
G. Jahukyan's "Introduction to Armenian Dialectology" (Yerevan, 1972), "The Development and Structure of the Armenian Language" (Yerevan, 1969), "Fundamentals of Modern Armenian Theory" (Yerevan, 1974), "Semantics and Word Formation of Modern Armenian" (Yerevan, 1989) monumental works were of pivotal importance and paved the way for further studies. G. Jahukyan's fundamental studies of "History of Linguistics" (Yerevan, 1960-1962), "General and Armenian Linguistics" (Yerevan, 1978) led to the idea of creating a universal pattern of language, which became a reality in his "Universal Theory of Language" (Russian, Moscow), 1999, English, 2003) monograph.
Under G. Jahukyan’s guidance, many candidates and doctoral theses were defended.
As a member of the linguistic societies of Europe and the USA, he played a major role in bringing the achievements of the Armenian linguistic school to the international arena.
