Matteo Giulio Bartoli (22 November 1873 – 23 January 1946) was an Italian linguist from

Istria Istria ( ; Croatian language, Croatian and Slovene language, Slovene: ; Italian language, Italian and Venetian language, Venetian: ; ; Istro-Romanian language, Istro-Romanian: ; ; ) is the largest peninsula within the Adriatic Sea. Located at th ...

(then a part of

Austria-Hungary Austria-Hungary, also referred to as the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Dual Monarchy or the Habsburg Monarchy, was a multi-national constitutional monarchy in Central Europe#Before World War I, Central Europe between 1867 and 1918. A military ...

, today part of modern

Croatia Croatia, officially the Republic of Croatia, is a country in Central Europe, Central and Southeast Europe, on the coast of the Adriatic Sea. It borders Slovenia to the northwest, Hungary to the northeast, Serbia to the east, Bosnia and Herze ...

). He obtained a doctorate at the

University of Vienna The University of Vienna (, ) is a public university, public research university in Vienna, Austria. Founded by Rudolf IV, Duke of Austria, Duke Rudolph IV in 1365, it is the oldest university in the German-speaking world and among the largest ...

, where his adviser was

Wilhelm Meyer-Lübke Wilhelm Meyer-Lübke (; 30 January 1861 – 4 October 1936) was a Swiss philologist of the Neogrammarian school of linguistics. Biography Meyer-Lübke, a nephew of Conrad Ferdinand Meyer, was born in Dübendorf, Switzerland. He studied Indo ...

, in 1898. He was influenced by certain theories of the Italian philosopher

Benedetto Croce Benedetto Croce, ( , ; 25 February 1866 – 20 November 1952) was an Italian idealist philosopher, historian, and politician who wrote on numerous topics, including philosophy, history, historiography, and aesthetics. A Cultural liberalism, poli ...

and the German linguist Karl Vossler. He later also studied with

Jules Gilliéron Jules Gilliéron (21 December 1854 – 26 April 1926) was a Swiss-French linguist and dialectologist Dialectology (from Greek , ''dialektos'', "talk, dialect"; and , '' -logia'') is the scientific study of dialects: subsets of languages. Though i ...

in Paris. From Gilliéron he acquired a penchant for fieldwork, and from 1900 on, he published numerous dialectological studies of Istrian dialects. In 1907, he became professor of the comparative history of classical and neo-Latin languages in the Faculty of Letters at the

University of Turin The University of Turin (Italian language, Italian: ''Università degli Studi di Torino'', UNITO) is a public university, public research university in the city of Turin, in the Piedmont (Italy), Piedmont region of Italy. It is one of the List ...

, where he served until his death. His study on the

Dalmatian language Dalmatian or Dalmatic (, ) is a group of now-extinct Romance varieties that developed along the coast of Dalmatia. Over the centuries they were increasingly influenced, and then supplanted, by Croatian and Venetian. It has not been demonstr ...

, ''Das Dalmatische'' (2 vol. 1906) is the only known complete description of the language, which is now extinct. It remains "the standard work on Dalmatian", and contains every known text in the language. Bartoli used data gathered in 1897 from the last speaker of Dalmatian, Tuone Udaina, who was killed in an explosives accident on 10 June 1898. He also wrote ''Introduzione alla neolinguistica'' ("Introduction to neolinguistics", 1925) and ''Saggi di linguistica spaziale'' ("Essays in spatial linguistics", 1945) and was the teacher of

Antonio Gramsci Antonio Francesco Gramsci ( , ; ; 22 January 1891 – 27 April 1937) was an Italian Marxist philosophy, Marxist philosopher, Linguistics, linguist, journalist, writer, and politician. He wrote on philosophy, Political philosophy, political the ...

Biography

A graduate of the

and lecturer in

Historical linguistics Historical linguistics, also known as diachronic linguistics, is the scientific study of how languages change over time. It seeks to understand the nature and causes of linguistic change and to trace the evolution of languages. Historical li ...

at the

from 1908 until his death in 1946, he became famous for his contributions in the field of Language geography, particularly his four rules on geographical areas. He contributed to the Atlante Linguistico Italiano and was a teacher of

. Influenced greatly by his mentor

and by some of the theories of

and Karl Vossler, he took a keen interest in Italian

dialectology Dialectology (from Ancient Greek, Greek , ''dialektos'', "talk, dialect"; and , ''-logy, -logia'') is the scientific study of dialects: subsets of languages. Though in the 19th century a branch of historical linguistics, dialectology is often now c ...

, a then emerging and methodologically advanced discipline, and wrote works on the

, including Das Dalmatische (1906). He is buried in Turin's Monumental Cemetery.

References

1873 births 1946 deaths Dalmatian language People from Labin 19th-century linguists 20th-century Italian linguists {{italy-linguist-stub

Biography

See also

References