Semyon Andreyevich Novgorodov was a Yakut politician and linguist, creator of one of the historical Yakut alphabets.

He studied various writing systems to create a new Yakut one. After a long search, he turned his attention to the international phonetic alphabet. The linguist worked to have this alphabet adopted and adapted for the Yakut language.

At that time, many representatives of the Yakut intellectuals, including one of the most prominent figures, Alexey Kulakovsky, a Yakut writer and poet, favored the use of the Cyrillic alphabet. Semyon Novgorodov had the following arguments: the Yakut Cyrillic alphabet had been used only for 50 years, and most of the Yakuts were illiterate; the Cyrillic alphabet was not unified, two variants were used in parallel, which were not available for mass use: the one, created by the academic Otto Böhtlingk and the one, invented by the missionary Dionisiy Khitrov. Thus, the alphabet based on the Cyrillic alphabet was intended primarily for those who knew Russian.

In March 1919, Semyon Novgorodov published several articles calling for a department of the Yakut language to be established at the Irkutsk State University. At that time, he also noted the similarity between modern Yakut and the language of Orkhon inscriptions, which was later confirmed by the works of other researchers.

In September of the same year, Semyon Andreyevich came to Yakutsk and joined the Yakut cultural and educational society “Sakha Aimakh”. As the government of Alexander Vasilyevich Kolchak, the statesman, politician and military leader, Supreme Ruler of Russia did not support his ideas, the linguist welcomed the return of Soviet power.

At the same time Semyon Novgorodov began to develop his public and scientific activities. He headed the linguistic section of one of the scientific research departments in Yakutsk governorate. He participated in a scientific expedition to the eastern uluses of Yakutia. He gave lectures at political propaganda and pedagogical courses. Novgorodov held the position of chairman of the commission for compiling textbooks in the Yakut language. As there were problems with printing equipment in Yakutia, in 1920 he went to Central Russia to buy it.