PUNE, Jan 6: Prof C R Sankaran, a distinguished linguist, died here on Friday.He was 91.

Dr Sankaran joined Deccan College in 1939 as a professor of linguistics and served there till his retirement in 1973. He specialised in Dravadian linguistics but he was also well-versed in other branches of knowledge like Sanskrit, philosophy and mathematics. He established a specialised laboratory for experimental phonetics science of speech sounds at the Deccan College, the only laboratory of its kind in South Asia. He was widely known in India and outside for his theory of Alphaphonoid.