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Alexander Vovin

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Alexander Vovin was a scholar who studied languages. He was a linguist. This means he studied how people speak and write. He was born in the Soviet Union. Later, he lived in the United States and France.

He spent his life looking at East Asian languages. He studied old Japanese writing and poems. One big project was the Man'yōshū. This is a very old book of Japanese poems. He wanted to translate it into English. He also studied the Ainu language from northern Japan. He looked at old Korean texts too.

Alexander worked at many great schools. He taught at the University of Michigan. He also taught at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. In 2014, he moved to Paris, France. There, he was the director of studies at a school called EHESS.

He led a large study of Japanese languages. This project had help from many universities. It even had millions of euros in funding. Alexander died in 2022 from cancer. He was 61 years old. He left behind much work for other scholars to use.

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