Vladimír Skalička

Vladimír Skalička
Born August 19, 1909
Prague, Austria-Hungary
Died January 17, 1991 (aged 81)
Prague, Czechoslovakia
Fields Linguistics
Institutions Charles University in Prague
Alma mater Charles University in Prague
Known for Morphological typology
Spouse Alena Skaličková

Vladimír Skalička (19 August 1909, Prague - 17 January 1991, Prague) was a Czech professor, linguist, translator, and polyglot. A member of the influential Prague School of linguists and literary critics and a corresponding member of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences, he is credited with further developing morphological typology.[1][2][3]

Life and work

Skalička was born on 19 August 1909 in Prague, then part of Austria-Hungary. His grandfather was Czech painter Josef Mánes.[2] He became associated with the Prague School while studying at Charles University in Prague, at which he habilitated in 1935, writing on Finno-Ugric linguistics.[3][4] He remained at the university, and in 1946 was appointed professor there, founding the department of linguistics and phonetics.[3] 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.[5]

His work included translation and comparative studies of languages, and was reported to have a basic understanding of approximately 1200 languages and dialects.[2]

He developed morphological typology into five categories, classifying languages into isolating, agglutinating, inflectional, introflectional, and polysynthetic.[2]

References

  1. ↑ "Skalička, Vladimír". The Great Soviet Encyclopedia. 1979. Retrieved 26 September 2013.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 "SKALIČKA Vladimir". Who's who in our history of the 20th century (Czech: KDO BYL KDO v našich dějinách ve 20. století). Retrieved 1 October 2013.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 VEČERKA, Radoslav. "SKALIČKA, Vladimir (1909-1991)". Bibliographic medallions of Czech linguists: scholars and Slavicists [online] (Czech: Bibliografické medailonky českých lingvistů: bohemistů a slavistů). Department of Linguistics and Baltic Languages, Masaryk University. p. 86. Retrieved 27 September 2013.
  4. ↑ Kuldanová, Pavlina; Svobodová, Jana (2003). "Pražský lingvistický kroužek" [Prague Linguistic Circle] (in Czech). Retrieved 1 October 2013.
  5. ↑ "Vladimír Skalička [1909-1991]: Bibliografie" [Vladimír Skalička [1909-1991]: Bibliography] (in Czech). Retrieved 1 October 2013.

External links