Pent Nurmekund

Pent Nurmekund was an Estonian linguist and polyglot. He could read over eighty languages.

Life

Nurmekund came from a poor peasant family and first attended school at the age of twelve.
From 1930 to 1935, he studied Romance and Germanic philology at Tartu University, and graduated with a Magister Philosophiae.
In 1935, he became a founding member of the Estonian Oriental Society.
From 1955 to 1986, he was a lecturer at Tartu University, and in the 1950s founded the Oriental department there.
In 1991, he received the Wiedemann Language Award.