Nikolai Yakovlevich Marr (, Nikolay Yakovlevich Marr; , Nikoloz Iak'obis dze Mari; — 20 December 1934) was a Georgian-born historian and linguist who gained a reputation as a scholar of the Caucasus during the 1910s before embarking on his "Japhetic theory" on the origin of language (from 1924), now considered as pseudo-scientific, and related speculative linguistic hypotheses. Marr's hypotheses were used as a rationale in the campaign during the 1920–30s in the Soviet Union of introduction of Latin alphabets for smaller ethnicities of the country. In 1950, the "Japhetic theory" fell from official favour, with Joseph Stalin denouncing it as anti-Marxist. Biography Marr was born on in Kutaisi, Georgia (then part of the Russian Empire). His father, James Montague Marr (1793–1874), was an Englishman of Scottish descent, had originally moved to the Caucasus in 1822 to work as a trader, before moving into horticulture and worked with the Gurieli family of Guria. His mother was a young Georgian woman (Agrafina Magularia). Marr's parents spoke different languages (James spoke English and Agrafina spoke the Gurian dialect of Georgian), and thus could hardly understand each other. When Marr was 8 his father died, leaving the family in difficult circumstances. In 1874 Marr was accepted into a Kutaisi boarding school, after his mother successfully secured funding from the local authorities for him. While a good student, Marr was nearly expelled as he was often in conflict with the school administration. He entered at St Petersburg University in 1884, where he specialized in Caucasian languages, and simultaneously studied Arabic, Persian, Turkish, Hebrew, Sanskrit, Syriac, among others. Working under , the head of the department, Marr mainly worked with manuscripts. He completed his master's degree in 1899, with his thesis titled The Collection of the Parables of Vardan. After graduating Marr taught at the university beginning in 1891, becoming dean of the Oriental faculty in 1911 and member of the Russian Academy of Sciences in 1912. Between 1904 and 1917 he undertook yearly excavations at the ancient Armenian capital of Ani. After a visit to Turkey in 1933 Marr developed influenza, followed several months later by a stroke. He died from complications of these ailments in Leningrad on 20 December 1934. Japhetic theory Marr gained recognition with his Japhetic theory, postulating the common origin of Caucasian, Semitic-Hamitic, and Basque languages. In 1924, he went even further and proclaimed that all the languages of the world