Vladimír Skalička (19 August 1909 – 17 January 1991) was a Czech
professor
Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an Academy, academic rank at university, universities and other tertiary education, post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin ...
,
linguist
Linguistics is the scientific study of language. The areas of linguistic analysis are syntax (rules governing the structure of sentences), semantics (meaning), Morphology (linguistics), morphology (structure of words), phonetics (speech sounds ...
,
translator
Translation is the communication of the meaning of a source-language text by means of an equivalent target-language text. The English language draws a terminological distinction (which does not exist in every language) between ''trans ...
, and
polyglot
Multilingualism is the use of more than one language, either by an individual speaker or by a group of speakers. When the languages are just two, it is usually called bilingualism. It is believed that multilingual speakers outnumber monolin ...
. A member of the influential
Prague School
The Prague school or Prague linguistic circle is a language and literature society. It started in 1926 as a group of linguists, philologists and literary critics in Prague. Its proponents developed methods of structuralist literary analysis and ...
of linguists and literary critics and a
corresponding member of the
Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences, he is credited with further developing
morphological typology
Morphological typology is a linguistic typology, way of classifying the languages of the world that groups languages according to their common Morphology (linguistics), morphological structures. The field organizes languages on the basis of how ...
.
Life and work
Skalička was born on 19 August 1909 in
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 ...
, then 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 ...
. His grandfather was Czech painter
Josef Mánes.
He became associated with the
Prague School
The Prague school or Prague linguistic circle is a language and literature society. It started in 1926 as a group of linguists, philologists and literary critics in Prague. Its proponents developed methods of structuralist literary analysis and ...
while studying at
Charles University in Prague
Charles University (CUNI; , UK; ; ), or historically as the University of Prague (), is the largest university in the Czech Republic. It is one of the oldest universities in the world in continuous operation, the oldest university north of the ...
, at which he habilitated in 1935, writing on
Finno-Ugric
Finno-Ugric () is a traditional linguistic grouping of all languages in the Uralic languages, Uralic language family except for the Samoyedic languages. Its once commonly accepted status as a subfamily of Uralic is based on criteria formulated in ...
linguistics.
He remained at the university, and in 1946 was appointed
professor
Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an Academy, academic rank at university, universities and other tertiary education, post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin ...
there, founding the department of linguistics and phonetics.
He continued to write until late into his life in a number of languages, collaborating with a number of other linguists including his wife, Alena Skaličková.
Skalička was an active communist and influenced some of his students in politics. In 1951–1952 he was the dean of the
Faculty of Arts of Charles University. In 1960 he was awarded the degree of Doctor of Sciences. Two years later he became a correspondent member of the
Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences.
After 1968 during the so called era of "
normalization
Normalization or normalisation refers to a process that makes something more normal or regular. Science
* Normalization process theory, a sociological theory of the implementation of new technologies or innovations
* Normalization model, used in ...
" he was expelled from the
Communist Party and sidelined within academia, however he continued to publish his works.
His work included translation and comparative studies of languages, and was reported to have a basic understanding of approximately 1200 languages and dialects.
He developed
morphological typology
Morphological typology is a linguistic typology, way of classifying the languages of the world that groups languages according to their common Morphology (linguistics), morphological structures. The field organizes languages on the basis of how ...
into five categories, classifying languages into ''isolating'', ''
agglutinating
An agglutinative language is a type of language that primarily forms words by stringing together morphemes (word parts)—each typically representing a single grammatical meaning—without significant modification to their forms ( agglutinations) ...
'', ''inflectional'', ''introflectional'', and ''
polysynthetic
In linguistic typology, polysynthetic languages, formerly holophrastic languages, are highly synthetic languages, i.e., languages in which words are composed of many morphemes (word parts that have independent meaning but may or may not be able t ...
''.
References
External links
Vladimír Skalička: Bibliography
{{DEFAULTSORT:Skalicka, Vladimir
1909 births
1991 deaths
People of the Prague linguistic circle
Linguists from the Czech Republic
Czech Finno-Ugrists
Academic staff of Charles University
20th-century Czech translators
20th-century Czech linguists