Božidar Finka (19 December 1925 – 17 May 1999) was a Croatian linguist, lexicographer and member of the
Croatian 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 ...
.
Life and education
Božidar Finka was born in Sali on 19 December 1925. In 1947 he finished high school in
Split
Split(s) or The Split may refer to:
Places
* Split, Croatia, the largest coastal city in Croatia
* Split Island, Canada, an island in the Hudson Bay
* Split Island, Falkland Islands
* Split Island, Fiji, better known as Hạfliua
Arts, enter ...
. In 1960, he graduated in Slavic Studies with the dissertation . Finka spent most of his scientific career working at the
Institute of Croatian Language and Linguistics
The Institute for the Croatian Language (, IHJ), formerly known as the Institute for the Croatian Language and Linguistics until 2023, is a state-run linguistics institute in Croatia whose purpose is to "preserve and foster" the Croatian language. ...
, serving as its director from 1973–77. He was a full member of the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts since 1988.
Works
Finka's most significant work was in the fields of Croatian and Slavic
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 ...
and
toponymy
Toponymy, toponymics, or toponomastics is the study of '' toponyms'' ( proper names of places, also known as place names and geographic names), including their origins, meanings, usage, and types. ''Toponym'' is the general term for a proper na ...
. With
Stjepan Babić and
Milan Moguš, he co-authored ('Croatian Orthography', 1st ed. 1971).
References
Sources
*
Finka, Božidarat enciklopedija.hr
1925 births
1999 deaths
People from Sali, Croatia
Linguists from Croatia
Croatian lexicographers
Dialectologists
Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Zagreb alumni
Members of the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts
20th-century Croatian linguists
20th-century lexicographers
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