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Born in Hungary in 1916, Sinor studied Altaic linguistics. Between 1939 and 1948, he he held various teaching and research posts in Hungary and France. After the war, where he served as a member of the French Resistance and later in the Free French Forces, he joined the faculty of Oriental Studies at Cambridge University. During this time he served on the Council of the Royal Asiatic Society as Honorary Secretary from 1955-1962.

In 1962, he moved to the United States, bringing his expertise to Indiana University where he created the Department of Uralic and Altaic Studies, now Central Eurasian Studies. In and outside of the department, Sinor worked to promote an appreciation of Inner Asia beyond its geographical and political neighbours, China and Russia. At IU, Sinor established two key and renowned resources for Inner Asian Studies. In 1967, he founded, and until 1981 directed, the Asian Studies Research Institute, known today as the Research Institute for Inner Asian Studies, whose collection of materials is unparalled. Sinor received many honours within and outside the United States. He was a member of the French and Hungarian Academies, he was an Honorary Professor of the Oriental Institute of the Russian Academy, was twice the holder of a Guggenheim Fellowship, and was repeatedly honoured by UNESCO.

But perhaps Sinor's most significant contribution to Inner Asian studies and Indiana University is the Inner Asian and Uralic National Resource Center (IAUNRC). The only one of its kind in the country, the centre has helped train and support a strong lineage of scholars and has helped support the study of such languages as Estonian, Finnish, Hungarian, Mongolian, Persian/Tajik, Tibetan, Turkish and Uzbek.

Professor Sinor died in January 2011.

Nicholas Sims-Williams, FBA (born 11 April 1949, Chatham, Kent) is a British professor of the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London, where he is Emeritus Professor of Iranian and Central Asian Studies at the School of Languages, Cultures and Linguistics, Centre for Iranian Studies. Sims-Williams is a scholar who specializes in Central Asian history, particularly the study of Sogdian and Bactrian languages. He is also a member of the advisory council of the Iranian Studies journal.

Sims-Williams recently worked on a dedicatory Sogdian inscription, dated to the 1st–3rd centuries CE, that was discovered at Kultobe in Kazakhstan. It alludes to military operations of the principal towns of Sogdiana against the nomads in the north. The inscription tends to confirm the confederational organization of the Kangju state and its various allies that was known previously from the Chinese texts.