Tomislav Maretić (13 October 1854 – 15 January 1938) was a

Croat The Croats (; hr, Hrvati ) are a South Slavic ethnic group who share a common Croatian ancestry, culture, history and language. They are also a recognized minority in a number of neighboring countries, namely Austria, the Czech Republic, Ge ...

ian linguist and lexicographer. He was born in Virovitica, where he attended primary school and the gymnasium in

Varaždin ) , image_photo = , image_skyline = , image_flag = Flag of Varaždin.svg , flag_size = , image_seal = , seal_size = , image_shield = Grb_Grad ...

, Požega and Zagreb. After graduating simultaneously Slavistics and Classical Philology at the Philosophical Faculty of the

University of Zagreb The University of Zagreb ( hr, Sveučilište u Zagrebu, ; la, Universitas Studiorum Zagrabiensis) is the largest Croatian university and the oldest continuously operating university in the area covering Central Europe south of Vienna and all of ...

in a three-year program, he passes his teacher exam for high-school teaching of

Ancient Greek Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic pe ...

and

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through ...

as primary, and Croatian as a secondary course. In 1877 he works as a probationary, and since 1880 as an assistant teacher in Velika gimnazija in Zagreb. He received his Ph.D. in 1884 in

Slavic studies Slavic (American English) or Slavonic (British English) studies, also known as Slavistics is the academic field of area studies concerned with Slavic areas, languages, literature, history, and culture. Originally, a Slavist or Slavicist was prim ...

and philosophy with the thesis ''O nekim pojavama kvantitete i akcenta u jeziku hrvatskom ili srpskom'' ("On some changes of quantity and accent in Croatian or Serbian language"). He further specialized in postdoctoral studies at the neogrammarian centers of

Leipzig Leipzig ( , ; Upper Saxon: ) is the most populous city in the German state of Saxony. Leipzig's population of 605,407 inhabitants (1.1 million in the larger urban zone) as of 2021 places the city as Germany's eighth most populous, as ...

and

Prague Prague ( ; cs, Praha ; german: Prag, ; la, Praga) is the capital and largest city in the Czech Republic, and the historical capital of Bohemia. On the Vltava river, Prague is home to about 1.3 million people. The city has a temperate ...

. He was appointed

professor extraordinarius Academic ranks in Germany are the titles, relative importance and power of professors, researchers, and administrative personnel held in academia. Overview Appointment grades * (Pay grade: ''W3'' or ''W2'') * (''W3'') * (''W2'') * (''W2'', ...

for "Slavic philology with particular emphasis on Croatian and Serbian history of language and literature" in 1886 (since 1890 ordinary professor and

JAZU The Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts ( la, Academia Scientiarum et Artium Croatica, hr, Hrvatska akademija znanosti i umjetnosti, abbrev. HAZU) is the national academy of Croatia. HAZU was founded under patronage of the Croatian bishop ...

member). In 1892 at the electional list of Magyar unionist party he was elected as a representative of Gospić, and since 1900 of

Slunj Slunj ( Hungarian ''Szluin'', old German ''Sluin'', Latin ''Slovin'', archaic Croatian ''Slovin grad'') is a town in the mountainous part of Central Croatia, located along the important North-South route to the Adriatic Sea between Karlovac and ...

kotar. In the period 1915 - 1918 he served as the president of JAZU, and twice as the head of the philological-historical class of the Academy, first from 1906 to 1913, then a second time from 1919 to 1928. As a gymnasium student he published short literary works (signing as ''Tomislav''). In the 1880s he focused on Croatian orthography and alphabet issues, having published a few papers on it (the study ''"Historija hrvatskoga pravopisa latinskijem slovima"'') in which he was laying foundations for the acceptance of phonologically-based orthography. At the end of the 19th century he published two grammars: the "academic" (''"Gramatika i stilistika hrvatskoga ili srpskoga književnog jezika"'') and gymnasium (''"Gramatika hrvatskoga jezika za niže razrede srednjih škola"'', both in 1899) version, in which he completely directed grammatical norm of the Croatian literary language towards Neoštokavian. Those two grammars represent the final confrontation with the competing conception of

standard language A standard language (also standard variety, standard dialect, and standard) is a language variety that has undergone substantial codification of grammar and usage, although occasionally the term refers to the entirety of a language that include ...

advocated by Zagreb philological school. Beside Ivan Broz, he was among the first

Shtokavian Shtokavian or Štokavian (; sh-Latn, štokavski / sh-Cyrl, italics=no, штокавски, ) is the prestige dialect of the pluricentric Serbo-Croatian language and the basis of its Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian and Montenegrin standards. It ...

purists. In 1907 he became editor of the massive dictionary compiled by the Academy, and until his death (from the lexeme ''maslo'' up to the lexeme ''pršutina'') he has edited approximately 5 500 pages which makes him one of the most prolific Croatian lexicographers. He studied the language of

Slavonia Slavonia (; hr, Slavonija) is, with Dalmatia, Croatia proper, and Istria, one of the four historical regions of Croatia. Taking up the east of the country, it roughly corresponds with five Croatian counties: Brod-Posavina, Osijek-Bar ...

n and

Dalmatia Dalmatia (; hr, Dalmacija ; it, Dalmazia; see names in other languages) is one of the four historical regions of Croatia, alongside Croatia proper, Slavonia, and Istria. Dalmatia is a narrow belt of the east shore of the Adriatic Sea, str ...

n writers and folk epics. He translated works from Polish, Latin and Ancient Greek, and some of the most well-known Croatian translations of the world's literature classics (

Mickiewicz Adam Bernard Mickiewicz (; 24 December 179826 November 1855) was a Polish poet, dramatist, essayist, publicist, translator and political activist. He is regarded as national poet in Poland, Lithuania and Belarus. A principal figure in Polish ...

Ovid Pūblius Ovidius Nāsō (; 20 March 43 BC – 17/18 AD), known in English as Ovid ( ), was a Augustan literature (ancient Rome), Roman poet who lived during the reign of Augustus. He was a contemporary of the older Virgil and Horace, with whom ...

Virgil Publius Vergilius Maro (; traditional dates 15 October 7021 September 19 BC), usually called Virgil or Vergil ( ) in English, was an ancient Roman poet of the Augustan period. He composed three of the most famous poems in Latin literature: th ...

Homer Homer (; grc, Ὅμηρος , ''Hómēros'') (born ) was a Greek poet who is credited as the author of the ''Iliad'' and the ''Odyssey'', two epic poems that are foundational works of ancient Greek literature. Homer is considered one of the ...

) are his work. In order to translate the classics he formed accentual

hexameter Hexameter is a metrical line of verses consisting of six feet (a "foot" here is the pulse, or major accent, of words in an English line of poetry; in Greek and Latin a "foot" is not an accent, but describes various combinations of syllables). It w ...

which

Petar Skok Petar Skok (; 1 March 1881 – 3 February 1956) was a Croatian linguist and onomastics expert. History Skok was born to a Croatian family in the village of Jurkovo Selo, Žumberak. From 1892 to 1900 he attended the Higher Real Gymnasium in Rako ...

called ''"Maretić's life's work"''. By his beliefs Maretić is a Croatian Vukovian, the advocate of the Croatian and

Serbian Serbian may refer to: * someone or something related to Serbia, a country in Southeastern Europe * someone or something related to the Serbs, a South Slavic people * Serbian language * Serbian names See also * * * Old Serbian (disambiguation ...

linguistic unity and the usage of phonological orthography, idealizer of the ''"pure people's language"'' and of exclusively (Neo-)Štokavian basis of the Serbo-Croatian

. He died in

Zagreb Zagreb ( , , , ) is the capital (political), capital and List of cities and towns in Croatia#List of cities and towns, largest city of Croatia. It is in the Northern Croatia, northwest of the country, along the Sava river, at the southern slop ...

Works

*Lekcionarij Bernarda Spljećanina, JAZU, 208 pp., Zagreb, 1885 *Nov prilog za istoriju akcentuacije hrvatske ili srpske, JAZU, 225 pp., Zagreb, 1885 *O narodnim imenima i prezimenima u Hrvata i Srba, JAZU, 150 pp., Zagreb, 1886 *Veznici u slovenskijem jezicima, JAZU, 299 pp., Zagreb, 1887 * Slaveni u davnini, Matica hrvatska, 256 pp., Zagreb, 1889 *Kosovski junaci i događaji u narodnoj epici, JAZU, 115 pp., Zagreb, 1889 *Istorija hrvatskoga pravopisa latinskijem slovima, JAZU, 406 pp., Zagreb, 1889 *Slavenski nominalni akcenat s obzirom na litavski, grčki i staroindijski, JAZU, 64 pp., Zagreb,1890 *Život i književni rad Franje Miklošića, JAZU, 113 pp., Zagreb, 1892 *Gramatika hrvatskoga jezika za niže razrede srednjih škola, Kugli, 270 pp., Zagreb, 1899 *Gramatika i stilistika hrvatskoga ili srpskoga književnog jezika, Kugli, 700 pp., Zagreb, 1899 *I. S. Turgenjev u hrvatskim i srpskim prijevodima, JAZU, 113 pp., Zagreb, 1904 *Rječnik hrvatskoga ili srpskoga jezika: edited in multiple occasions more than 5 300 pages *Metrika narodnih naših pjesama, JAZU, 200 pp., Zagreb, 1907 *Naša narodna epika, JAZU, 263 pp., Zagreb, 1909 *Jezik slavonskijeh pisaca, JAZU, 88 pp., 1910 *Jezik dalmatinskijeh pisaca XVIII. vijeka, JAZU, 92 pp., Zagreb, 1916 *Hrvatski ili srpski «jezični savjetnik», Jugoslavenska njiva, 509 pp., Zagreb, 1923 *Metrika muslimanske narodne epike, JAZU, 138 pp., Zagreb, 1936

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Maretic, Tomislav 1854 births 1938 deaths Linguists from Croatia People from Virovitica Members of the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Zagreb alumni Burials at Mirogoj Cemetery Slavists