Background
Gamkrelidze was born in Kutaisi, Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic.
Gamkrelidze was born in Kutaisi, Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic.
Tamaz Gamkrelidze graduated from the Faculty of Oriental Studies of the Tbilisi State University (TSU) in 1952.
Since 1964 Gamkrelidze has been a professor of this university, and since 1966 the Head of the Chair of Structural and Applied Linguistics. In 1973-2006 he was a Director of the Tsereteli Institute of Oriental Studies (Tbilisi). He is the author of many outstanding works in the fields of Indo-European linguistics, Ancient languages, Theoretical linguistics, Structural and Applied Linguistics and Kartvelology.
He is a leading proponent of the glottalic theory of Proto-Indo-European consonants.
In 1988-1995 he edited the Journal of the Russian Academy of Science "Voprosi Yazikoznanya".
Saxonian Academy of Sciences. Austrian Academy of Sciences. Russian Academy of Sciences.
Academy of Sciences of the Union of the Soviet Socialist Republics. National Academy of Sciences]
He is a Foreign Associate of the United States National Academy of Sciences (2006), Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, Corresponding Fellow of the British Academy, Fellow of the European Society of Linguistics (in 1986-1988 President of this Society), Corresponding Member of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, Academician of the Russian Academy of Science, a Fellow of the World Academy of Art and Science (2006), Doctor honoris causa of the Bonn University (Germany) and the University of Chicago (United States), Honorary Member of the Linguistic Society of America, et cetera
From 1992 to 2005 Gamkrelidze was a member of the Parliament of Georgia.