Prods Oktor Skjaervo

Skjaervo in English) is Emeritus Professor of Iranian Studies in the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations at Harvard University,[1] where he succeeded Richard Frye as Aga Khan Professor of Iranian Studies.

Born in Steinkjer, Norway, Skjærvø is a hyperpolyglot, familiar with historical and living languages including Old Norse, Norwegian, English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Latin, Larestani, Kumzari, Bashkardi, Pashto, Yidgha, Yaghnobi, Munji, Old Khotanese, Avestan, Old Persian, Pahlavi, Manichean Middle Persian, Parthian, Sogdian, Khotanese, New Persian, Ossetic, Kurdish, Tokharian, Vedic, and Classical Sanskrit.

In 1963 Skjærvø enrolled at the University of Oslo where he studied French, Latin, and Sanskrit, with a semester in 1965 at the Sorbonne in Paris.

with the thesis, Undersøkelser til verbalsystemet i gammelpersisk og vastly middeliransk (Investigations into the verbal systems of Old Persian and Western Middle Iranian), on which he subsequently based his “Remarks on the Old Persian Verbal System.”[2] He then completed his Ph. D.

in 1981 from the University of Oslo with the dissertation, The Paikuli Inscription, Restoration and Interpretation.