Mammad agha Mammad Taghi Soltan oglu Shahtakhtinski (Azeri: Məmməd ağa Şahtaxtinski) (1846, Erivan – 1931, Baku) was an Azerbaijani linguist and public figure.Shahtakhtinski was born into an Azeri family living in Erivan (present-day Yerevan). He was raised Muslim and attended a religious school as a child. In 1869 he graduated from the University of Leipzig with a degree in philosophy, history and law. In 1873, he enrolled in courses at the École des langues orientales but was forced to return to Russia in 1875, after his father's death. Until the early 1890s he worked as a journalist publishing articles in the Russian newspapers Moskovskie Vedomosti, Novoe Vremia, etc. on various subjects ranging from linguistics and education to the life in Persia and the Ottoman Empire. In 1898, Shahtakhtinski returned to Paris to excel in Arabic, Persian and Turkish languages at the Collège de France and the École pratique des hautes études. His keen interest in these languages resulted in him being admitted into the prestigious Société Asiatique. Wikipedia
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