Background
He was the son of the astronomer Natalia Sergeyevna Yakhontova.
He was the son of the astronomer Natalia Sergeyevna Yakhontova.
In 1950, he graduated from the Oriental Faculty of Leningrad State University. Yakhontov studied under Alexander Dragunov and developed many ideas of his teacher, in fact creating the Leningrad (Street St. Petersburg) school of Sino-Tibetan linguistics.
In 1962–1963 he underwent a training at Beijing and later on visited Nanyang University (Singapore) from 1971 to 1972. He teaches at the Oriental Faculty of Saint St. Petersburg State University. He published dozens of articles, many of them being translated into English, Chinese and Japanese.
In particular, he made major contributions to Old Chinese phonology, proposing the *l medial (now commonly treated as *r) and a rounded vowel *o, which led to the six vowel system that is now accepted by most researchers.