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

Croat The Croats (; , ) are a South Slavs, South Slavic ethnic group native to Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and other neighboring countries in Central Europe, Central and Southeastern Europe who share a common Croatian Cultural heritage, ancest ...

ian linguist and lexicographer. He was born in

Virovitica Virovitica () is a Croatian city near the Hungary, Hungarian border. It is situated near the Drava river and belongs to the historic region of Slavonia. Virovitica has a population of 14,688, with 21,291 people in the municipality (census 2011). I ...

, where he attended primary school and the gymnasium in

Varaždin Varaždin ( or ; , also known by #Name, alternative names) is a city in Northern Croatia, north-east of Zagreb. The total population is 46,946, with 38,839 in the city settlement itself (2011). The city is best known for its baroque buildings, ...

, Požega and Zagreb. He graduated in 1878, receiving a diploma in classical and Slavic

philology Philology () is the study of language in Oral tradition, oral and writing, written historical sources. It is the intersection of textual criticism, literary criticism, history, and linguistics with strong ties to etymology. Philology is also de ...

at the Faculty of Philosophy in Zagreb. He worked as a high school teacher in Požega from 1879 to 1881 and in Zagreb from 1881 to 1885. He received his doctorate in 1883, and from 1886 taught Slavic philology at the Faculty of Philosophy 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 ...

. That same year, he went on a one-year study stay in

Leipzig Leipzig (, ; ; Upper Saxon: ; ) is the most populous city in the States of Germany, German state of Saxony. The city has a population of 628,718 inhabitants as of 2023. It is the List of cities in Germany by population, eighth-largest city in Ge ...

and

Prague Prague ( ; ) is the capital and List of cities and towns in the Czech Republic, largest city of the Czech Republic and the historical capital of Bohemia. Prague, located on the Vltava River, has a population of about 1.4 million, while its P ...

. He retired in 1914, but returned to the faculty to teach Indo-European Studies between 1919 and 1924. In 1890 he became a full 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 ...

, and served as its president from 1915 to 1918. He was a member of parliament of the Unionist Party twice for five years. Maretić was a polyglot with a wide education, a prolific linguist, the main representative of the so-called Croatian Vukovars, responsible for the consistent codification of Novoštokavian as a literary language and for the introduction of phonological orthography, advocating for the linguistic unity of Croatian and Serbian. Maretić's grammar was for most of the 20th century the foundation of the Croatian language norm and the main language manual for generations of pupils and students. Criticized immediately after its publication because it was not based on Croatian literature but mainly on folk songs and works by Vuk Stefanović Karadžić and Đura Daničić, this grammar was, for its time, the most comprehensive description of classical Novoštokavian language. He died in

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 Linguists of Slavic languages Linguists from Austria-Hungary