Tomislav Maretić (October 13, 1854, Virovitica – January 15, 1938, Zagreb) was a Croatian linguist and lexicographer.
He attended primary school in Virovitica and the gymnasium in Varaždin, Požega and Zagreb. After graduating simultaneously Slavistics and Classical Philology at the Philosophical Faculty of the University of Zagreb in a three-year program, he passes his teacher exam for high-school teaching of Ancient Greek and Latin as primary, and Croatian as a secondary course. In 1877 he works as a probationary, and since 1880 as an assistant teacher in Velika gimnazija in Zagreb. He received his Ph.D. in 1884 in Slavistics and philosophy with the thesis O nekim pojavama kvantitete i akcenta u jeziku hrvatskom ili srpskom ('On some changes of quantity and accent in Croatian or Serbian language'). He further specialized in postdoctoral studies in the neogrammarian centers of Leipzig and Prague.
He was appointed professor extraordinarius for "Slavic philology with particular emphasis on Croatian and Serbian history of language and literature" in 1886 (since 1890 ordinary professor and JAZU member). In 1892 at the electional list of Magyar unionist party he was elected as a representative of Gospić, and since 1900 of Slunj kotar. In the period 1915 - 1918 he served as the president of JAZU, and twice as the head of he philological-historical class of the academy, first from 1906–1913, then a second time from 1919-1928.
As a gymnasium student he published short literary works (signing as Tomislav). In the 1880s he focused on Croatian orthography and alphabet issues, having published a few papers on it (the study "Historija hrvatskoga pravopisa latinskijem slovima") in which he was laying foundations for the acceptance of phonologically-based orthography. At the end of 19th century he published two grammars: the "academic" ("Gramatika i stilistika hrvatskoga ili srpskoga književnog jezika") and gymnasium ("Gramatika hrvatskoga jezika za niže razrede srednjih škola", both in 1899) version, in which he completely directed grammatical (morphosyntactical) norm of the Croatian language towards Neo-Štokavian speeches using as a base works that were completely unrepresentative of the contemporary Croatian language. At the same time, those two grammars represent the final confrontation with the conception of standard language advocated by Zagreb philological school. Beside Ivan Broz, he was among the first Shtokavian purists.
In 1907 he became editor of the massive dictionary compiled by the Academy, and until his death (from the lexeme maslo up to the lexeme pršutina) he has edited approximately 5 500 pages which makes him one of the most prolific Croatian lexicographers. He studied the language of Slavonian and Dalmatian writers and folk epics. He translated works from Polish, Latin and Ancient Greek, and some of the most well-known Croatian translations of the world's literature classics (Mickiewicz, Ovid, Virgil, Homer) are his work. In order to translate the classics he formed accentual hexameter which Petar Skok called "Maretić's life's work". By his beliefs Maretić is a Vukovian, the advocate of the cult of Vuk Karadžić in Croats, Croatian and Serbian linguistic unity and phonological orthography, idealizer of the "pure people's language" and of exclusively (Neo-)Štokavian basis of the Croatian standard language.
By analysing Maretić's linguistic activity with a century-long detachment, a few points tend to crystallize: Maretić's credit for the scientific (according to the contemporary insights) analysis of Neo-Štokavian dialect system, writing the best grammar of standard language completely in accordance with that system, and numerous translations and editing of the Academy's dictionary have indebted Croatian culture for years to come. Therefore, it's ironical to say that Maretić's contributions (which are essential ingredients of the modern Croatian standard language) are simultaneously a part of Croatian literary language, but, looking from the perspective of Maretić's language viewpoints - have been completely discarded. Namely, the school of Croatian Vukovians, with Maretić as a foremost proponent, had several central points of advocation, three of which can be selected:
Those three elements alone, much more than individual orthographical or accentological solutions, distinguish standard Serbian from standard Croatian - and since Maretić was language unitarist, those three characteristics were obstacles he strived to eliminate as much as he could. History eventually showed that he failed in his attempts, as the rest of Croatian Vukovians did.
20th century has seen the rise of the Kajkavian and Čakavian masterpieces of Croatian literature (Miroslav Krleža, Vladimir Nazor), those two dialects penetrating Croatian standard language Maretić's futile efforts notwithstanding; Croatian language culture has absorbed older linguistic and literary heritage (Marko Marulić, Hanibal Lucić, Marin Držić, Ivan Gundulić, Andrija Kačić Miošić) that Maretić systematically suppressed and diminished, seeing it, rightfully, as an obstacle towards "Croato-Serbian language union"; neologisms, from Bogoslav Šulek up to Tomislav Ladan, have been an essential constituent of the Croatian language - again against the principal Maretić's linguistic dogmas. The whole description of the Croatian language system by the school of Croatian Vukovian (namely Maretić), based on the neogrammarian philology, has been replaced by more appropriate approach of structuralism (Dalibor Brozović, Radoslav Katičić, Stjepan Babić). However, Maretić's philological description of neoštokavian dialect, as exposed in his magisterial "Gramatika i stilistika hrvatskog ili srpskog jezika", remains, along with Broz's "Hrvatski pravopis"/Croatian Orthography, the fundament of the final phasis of Croatian language standardization.
| Academic offices | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by Tadija Smičiklas |
President of the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts 1915 – 1918 |
Succeeded by Vladimir Mažuranić |