Abatbay Dauletov

Abatbay Dauletov was born on 20 September 1942 in the village of Xalqabad in the Kegeyli district of Karakalpakstan. In 1964 he graduated from the Karakalpak State Pedagogical Institute and stayed there as a lecturer.

His further academic path was tied to Leningrad State University, where in 1972 he defended his candidate’s dissertation on the vowel system of the modern Karakalpak literary language. In the early 1990s he defended a doctoral dissertation on the sound structure of the same language, became a Doctor of Philology and received the title of professor (sources give different years for the doctoral defence: 1992 and 1994).

For several decades he taught at Karakalpak State University as an associate professor, head of a department, dean of a faculty and professor. According to the Uzbek national encyclopedia, he headed the department in 1978–1985 and again from 1996, and became dean of a faculty in 1985.

Dauletov’s main research concerned the phonetics of the Karakalpak literary language, vowel harmony (synharmonism) and orthography. He is known for the books “Vocalism in the Karakalpak Language” (1976) and “Synharmonism in the Karakalpak Language” (1993), for university textbooks, and for taking part in compiling the “Spelling Dictionary of the Karakalpak Language” (1986).

In 1995 he was elected an academician of the Academy of Sciences of Uzbekistan. Dozens of candidates and doctors of sciences were trained under his supervision. He held the honorary title of Honoured Science Worker.

Abatbay Dauletov died in Nukus on 7 April 2015.