Education
He studied linguistics until 1950.
historian linguist university professor
He studied linguistics until 1950.
He has contributed to studies in the history of languages, onomastics and other areas. Zinkevičius is the author of 30 academic books and several hundred scientific publications in various languages. After graduating from the gymnasium at Ukmergė in 1945, he enrolled in Vilnius University.
From 1956 to 1962, Zinkevičius was Dean of the Faculty of History and Philology of Vilnius University.
Together with his colleagues, he established a new classification of Lithuanian language dialects. Foreign his work Lietuvių dialektologija (Lithuanian dialectology) (1966) Zigmas Zinkevičius received a Habilitated Doctor degree, and became a professor two years later.
In 1973 Zinkevičius took a new position at Vilnius University as chairman of the Lithuanian language department, and has been serving since 1988 as chairman of the Baltic Philology department. He is fluent in a number of languages, including English, German, Russian, Polish, Ukrainian, Belarusian, and French.
Zinkevičius is considered as the most cited Lithuanian linguist.
Zinkevičius worked as Minister of Education and Science under Prime Minister Gediminas Vagnorius. He has published a book discussing this experience as a Minister of Education Kaip Aš Buvau Ministru (How I was a Minister).
In 1955 Zinkevičius defended his thesis Lietuvių kalbos įvardžiuotinių būdvardžių istorijos bruožai (Historical traits of adjective pronouns in Lithuanian language) and received Doctoral degree.
Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters]
Zigmas Zinkevičius has, since 1982, been a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Letters, History and Antiquities. Since 1991, of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters, and since 1995, a member of the Latvian Academy of Sciences and the Lithuanian Catholic Academy of Sciences. He is member of the Lithuanian Christian Democratic Party and was elected its chairman in 1999.
Zinkevičius was a member of the Seimas (Lithuanian Parliament) in 2000–2004.
He is also a member of the National Language Committee.