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, Božidar
at 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 {{Croatia-academic-bio-stub