Dalibor Brozović

Dalibor Brozović (Croatian pronunciation: [dǎlibor brǒːzoʋit͡ɕ]; 28 July 1927 – 19 June 2009) was a Croatian linguist, Slavist, dialectologist and politician. He studied the history of standard languages in the Slavic region, especially Croatian. He was an active Esperantist since 1946, and wrote Esperanto poetry as well as translated works into the language.

Life and career He was born in Sarajevo and went to primary school in Zenica. Then he went to comprehensive secondary schools in Visoko, Sarajevo and Zagreb. He received a BA degree in the Croatian language and Yugoslav literatures at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Zagreb. In 1957, he received his Ph.D. with the thesis Speech in the Fojnica Valley. Brozović worked as an assistant at the Zagreb Theater Academy (1952–1953) and as a lecturer at the University of Ljubljana (until 1956). He subsequently went to the Faculty of Philosophy in Zadar, becoming an associate professor (1956), docent (1958), extraordinary (1962) and full (1968-1990) professor. In 1969 he worked as a visiting professor at the University of Michigan, and since 1971 at the University of Regensburg. In 1975 he became an associate, and in 1977 extraordinary, and in 1986 full member of the Yugoslav Academy of Sciences and Arts. Since 1986 he was an external member of the Macedonian Academy of Sciences and Arts, and since 1991 of the Academia Europaea. Since 1946 he was a member of the Communist Party. In the late 1980s, he was a co-founder and vice-president of the Croatian Democratic Union,…Citește mai mult

Linguistic importance Brozović has been described as one of the most influential Croatian linguists of the 20th century. However, this view is given from an extremely nationalist perspective, as Brozović was known to often abandon linguistics for an extremely nationalist discourse. Among his main works are the book Standardni jezik ("Standard Language") (1970) and the article "Hrvatski jezik, njegovo mjesto unutar južnoslavenskih i drugih slavenskih jezika, njegove povijesne mijene kao jezika hrvatske književnosti" (Croatian: Its Place among the South Slavic and Other Slavic Languages, Its Historical Changes as the Language of Croatian Literature, 1978). The former gives a typology of standard languages, which however meets criticism for containing disputable and vague criteria. The latter divides the history of Croatian into three pre-standard and three standard periods. Whereas it was widely believed that Croatian was only standardized around the time of the Illyrian movement and Ljudevit Gaj, Brozović argued that the standardization began around 1600 and greatly developed around 1750. However, this Brozović's article also faces criticism due to the fact that "in the 18th century, there was no standard language (’überdachende’ sprachliche Entität), which would roof Kajkavian and Shtokavian". In other words, the major standardization activities took place only in…Citește mai mult

Works Rječnik jezika ili jezik rječnika (Dictionary of a Language or a Language of Dictionaries), Zagreb, 1969

Standardni jezik (Standard Language), Zagreb, 1970 Deset teza o hrvatskome jeziku (Ten Theses on Croatian), Zagreb, 1971 Hrvatski jezik, njegovo mjesto unutar južnoslavenskih i drugih slavenskih jezika, njegove povijesne mijene kao jezika hrvatske književnosti (Croatian: Its Place among the South Slavic and Other Slavic Languages, Its Historical Changes as the Language of Croatian Literature), in a book by a collective of authors, Zagreb, 1978 Fonologija hrvatskoga književnog jezika (Phonology of the Croatian Standard Language) in the book by a collective of authors Povijesni pregled, glasovi i oblici hrvatskoga književnog jezika (Historical Overview, Sounds and Forms of the Croatian Standard Language), Zagreb, 1991 Prvo lice jednine (First Person Singular: Coll. of previously publ. articles), Zagreb, 2005