Jakov Mikalja

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Mikalja's dictionary
Mikalja's dictionary

Jakov Mikalja[1] (Italian: Giacomo Micaglia, Latin: Jacobi Micalia) (Peschici, March 31, 1601 - Loreto, December 1, 1654) was a Croatian Italian linguist and lexicographer, born in the Kingdom of Naples.

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[edit] Life

Mikalja was born in Peschici (in Croatian: Pještica), at that time a Croat settlement[2] [3], on the Gargano peninsula in the Apulia region of the Kingdom of Naples. He stated he considers himself an Italian of Slavic language [4][2]. After completing the studies in philosophy in 1628, he became a Jesuit.

Because of his knowledge of the Croatian language, Mikalja was dispatched to the Republic of Ragusa by the Jesuit order. It was the time of Counter-Reformation and the Catholic Church wished to restore its power in the Balkans as well. For four years (1630-1633) Mikalja taught grammar at the Jesuit College in Ragusa (Dubrovnik). There he wrote "Latin grammar for Illyrian (Croat) students" after Emanuel Alvares (De institutione grammatica pro Illyricis accommodata, 1637).

A few years later, in 1636, Mikalja sent a letter to the Sacred Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith, proposing a reform of the Latin alphabet for the needs of the Croatian language.

He discussed the same issue in the chapter "On Slavic Orthography"[citation needed]} of his work in Croatian "God-Loving Thoughts on the Lord's Prayer Taken from the Books of St Thomas Aquinas, the Angelic Doctor" (Bratislava, 1642).
From 1637 to 1645 he was a missionary among the Catholics in Timişoara in the Banat (present day Romania). He came back to to Italy, where he was the Croatian confessor in Loreto, from 1645 till his death.

[edit] Dictionary

Mikalja's greatest work is "Thesaurus of Slovinian (Croatian) Language and Slovinian (Croatian) Dictionary (where Croatian words are translated in Italian and Latin)". It was first printed in Loreto in 1649, but a better printing press was needed, so it was completed in Ancona in 1651. The dictionary was a Jesuits project, an instrument to fight the Protestant Reformation in the Balkans.

It was the first Croatian dictionary, with Croatian (under name of "Illyric" or "Slovinian") as the starting language (in the very same dictionary, he treats the terms Croatian, Slovinian and Illyric as synonyms[5][6][5] ). An Important thing to note is that Mikalja names in his dicionary Croatian language as "Illyric" or "Slovinian", Italian as "Latin", which he names as the "students' language" (diacki). The introduction to the dictionary has a "Latin" dedication, a note to the reader in Italian (Al benigno lettore), a presentation of the alphabet and orthography in Latin and Croatian (Od ortographie jezika slovinskoga ili načina od pisanja), and an Italian grammar in Croatian (Grammatika Talianska).

Mikalja explains in the foreword that he chosen the "Bosnian" dialect, because "everyone says that the Bosnian language is the most beautiful one" ("Ogn'un dice che la lingua Bosnese sia la piu bella"). "Bosnian" is identified as the Shtokavian dialect of the local South Slavic languages. The dictionary, intended primarily to teach students and young Jesuits, has around 25,000 words. It belongs to the corpse of dictionaries in Shtokavian dialect, with some Chakavian parts, and even Kaykavian lexic as entry or synonym.[5] Mikalja's dictionary is regarded as a Croatian dictionary [2] by mainstream lexicographers and linguists.

From the cultural point of view, Mikalja's work was influenced by earlier works of Faust Vrančić and Kašić, and it influenced the Croatian circle of lexicographers (among them Franciscans Divković and Tomo Babić), both in Croatia and in Bosnia and Herzegovina. His work is an integral part of development and standardization of Croatian modern language.

[edit] Works

  • Bogoljubno razmiscgljanje od ocenascja Pokupgljeno iz kgniga Svetoga Tomme od Aquina Nauciteglja Anghjelskoga
    (God-Loving Thoughts on the Lord's Prayer Taken from the Books of St Thomas Aquinas, the Angelic Doctor, Bratislava, 1642)
  • Blago jezika slovinskoga ili Slovnik u Komu izgovarajuse rjeci slovinske Latinski, i Diacki. Thesaurus linguae Illyricae sive Dictionarium Illyricum. In quo verba Illyrica Italice, et Latine redduntur, Romae: et sumptibus Sacrae congregationis de propaganda fide impressum, Loreto, apud Paulum et Io. Baptistam Seraphinum, 1649
    (Thesaurus of Croatian language or a Croatian Dictionary, where Croatian words are translated in Italian and Latin) (Ancona, 1651).

Printing of the "Blago..." was started by Serafini brothers in Loreto in 1649, and finished by O. Beltrano in Ancona in 1651.

[edit] References

  1. ^ Hrvatski leksikon 2 L - Ž, Naklada Leksikon d.o.o., Zagreb, 1997, ISBN 953-96728-0-5
  2. ^ a b c (Italian)3. RAI International Online - Lingue diverse dall’italiano in Italia
  3. ^ (Croatian) Vjesnik Inoslav Bešker: Hrvatski korijeni Peschichija, Nov 3, 1998
  4. ^ (Italian) Reportonline - Quando a Peschici gli slavi ___ erano di casa
  5. ^ a b c (Croatian) IHJJ - About Jakov Mikalja
  6. ^ IHJJ - Scanned page

[edit] External links

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