Željko Bujas (16 February 1928 – 16 March 1999) was a

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 ...

n linguist, Anglicist, Americanist and

lexicographer Lexicography is the study of lexicons and the art of compiling dictionaries. It is divided into two separate academic disciplines: * Practical lexicography is the art or craft of compiling, writing and editing dictionary, dictionaries. * The ...

. He was born in Pag. In 1952 he received a degree in English language and literature, and Russian. In 1954 he became assistant in the English language at Department of

English studies English studies (or simply, English) is an academic discipline taught in primary, secondary, and post-secondary education in English-speaking countries. This is not to be confused with English taught as a foreign language, which is a dis ...

at the Faculty of Philosophy in Zagreb. He received his doctorate in 1965 with a thesis on

machine translation Machine translation is use of computational techniques to translate text or speech from one language to another, including the contextual, idiomatic and pragmatic nuances of both languages. Early approaches were mostly rule-based or statisti ...

from English into Croatian. Since 1974 he worked as a full professor. He became a corresponding member of the

Yugoslav Academy of Sciences and Arts The Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts (; , HAZU) is the national academy of Croatia. HAZU was founded under the patronage of the Croatian bishop Josip Juraj Strossmayer under the name Yugoslav Academy of Sciences and Arts (, JAZU) since its ...

in 1977, an associate member in 1988, and a full member of the Academy in 1990. Bujas was the first in Croatia to create computer concordances of Croatian writers ( Gundulić's ''Osman'', ''Istarski razvod'' in collaboration with others, the works of

Marko Marulić Marko Marulić Splićanin (; ; 18 August 1450 – 5 January 1524), was a Croatian poet, lawyer, judge, and Renaissance humanist. He is the national poet of Croatia. According to George J. Gutsche, Marulić's epic poem '' Judita'' "is the first ...

etc.). He amended, updated and edited Milan Drvodelić's ''Englesko-hrvatsko-srpski rječnik'' ("English-Serbian-Croatian dictionary"; 1962²-1981⁶) and reworked his ''Hrvatsko ili srpsko-engleski rječnik'' ("Serbo-Croatian-English dictionary"; 1978⁴-1996⁷). He participated in other lexicographic projects as well. His ''Hrvatsko ili srpsko-engleski enciklopedijski rječnik '' ("Serbo-Croatian-English Encyclopedic Dictionary"; I. A-Lj, 1983; II. M-O, 1989) remained unfinished. His ''Veliki englesko-hrvatski rječnik'' ("Large English-Croatian dictionary") and ''Veliki hrvatsko-engleski rječnik'' ("Large Croatian-English dictionary"; 1999) were published posthumously. As a linguist, Bujas was involved in contrastive analysis of English and Croatian, the differences between

American English American English, sometimes called United States English or U.S. English, is the set of variety (linguistics), varieties of the English language native to the United States. English is the Languages of the United States, most widely spoken lang ...

in relation to the British (especially in the lexicon), as well as the study of American English in the context of American culture and everyday life. At the

University of Zagreb The University of Zagreb (, ) is a public university, public research university in Zagreb, Croatia. It is the largest Croatian university and one of the oldest continuously operating universities in Europe. The University of Zagreb and the Unive ...

he organized a Ph.D. program in

American studies American studies or American civilization is an interdisciplinarity, interdisciplinary field of scholarship that examines American literature, History of the United States, history, Society of the United States, society, and Culture of the Unit ...

. He served as a representative in the

Croatian Parliament The Croatian Parliament () or the Sabor is the Unicameralism, unicameral legislature of Croatia. Under the terms of the Constitution of Croatia, Croatian Constitution, the Sabor represents the nation, people and is vested with legislative power. ...

(since 1995) and as the first Croatian ambassador to Great Britain (1993-1995). 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, north of the country, along the Sava river, at the southern slopes of the ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bujas, Zeljko 20th-century Croatian historians Croatian lexicographers 1928 births 1999 deaths People from Zadar County Academic staff of the University of Zagreb Members of the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts Representatives in the modern Croatian Parliament Ambassadors of Croatia to the United Kingdom 20th-century lexicographers