Ivan Klajn
Ivan Klajn (Cyrillic: Иван Клајн, pronounced [ǐʋan klâjn]; born in Belgrade, 1937) is a Serbian linguist, philologist and language historian, with primary interest in Romance languages and Serbian. He is a regular member of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts, and the editor-in-chief of the Matica srpska's journal Jezik danas. Through his paternal family, which lived in Vukovar for generations, he is of Croatian-Jewish descent.[1]
He completed the studies of the Italian language and literature at the University of Belgrade Faculty of Philology. After graduation, he started working at the same faculty, becoming a regular professor of the Italian language and the comparative grammar of Romance languages. Beside Romance Studies, his interest also lies in the language morphology, linguistic consultancy and the standardization of the modern Serbian language. His major works are the Rečnik jezičkih nedoumica ('The dictionary of linguistic dilemmas'), Tvorba reči u savremenom srpskom jeziku ('Morphology in modern Serbian language', 2 volumes) and Italijansko-srpski rečnik ('Italian-Serbian dictionary').
Books and articles
Since 1974 he starts writing weekly columns on the problems of modern Serbo-Croatian, first in Borba, and afterward in Politika and NIN.
He is the editor-in-chief of the linguistic journal Jezik danas ('Language today'), published by Matica srpska. He published a number of papers in linguistic journals, as well as 18 books:
- Ispeci pa reci
- Istorijska gramatika španskog jezika
- Italijansko-srpski rečnik (2 editions)
- Uticaji engleskog jezika u italijanskom (1971)
- Jezik oko nas (1980)
- Lingvističke studije (2000)
- O funkciji i prirodi zamenica (1985)
- Pisci i pismenjaci (1994)
- Razgovori o jeziku (1978)
- Rečnik jezičkih nedoumica (6 editions)
- Rečnik novih reči (1992)
- Stranputice smisla
- Tvorba reči u savremenom srpskom jeziku - Volume I (2002)
- Tvorba reči u savremenom srpskoj jeziku - Volume II (2003)
In co-autorhsip with Pavle Ivić, Mitar Pešikan and Branislav Brborić he wrote Jezički priručnik ('Language manual'), published by Radio Television Belgrade (1991). In the miscellany Srpski jezik na kraju veka ('Serbian language at the end of century') he wrote a part dealing with lexis. His Rečnik jezičkih nedoumica ('The dictionary of language dilemmas') was reprinted in 6 editions. For his Italijansko-srpski rečnik ('Italian-Serbian dictionary', 2nd edition, 2000), he received an award from the Italian government.
Translation
He translated a number of books from Italian and English. His translation of the Giordano Bruno's Il Candelaio ('The Torchbearer'; Serbian: Svećar) was played at the Atelje 212 in Belgrade. He was one of the editors of the Serbian edition of the Cambridge Encyclopedia of Languages (Nolit, Belgrade, 1995), and of the translators of the Serbian edition of the Encyclopedic dictionary of modern linguistics (Nolit, Belgrade, 1988).
Membership
He is a member of the Vukova zadužbina Council ('Vuk's endowment') and the Board for Standardization of the Serbian Language. He is a member and the contributor of Matica srpska.
References
- ↑ Nikolić, Aleksandar (18 September 2011). "Ivan Klajn: Krleža me je učio tajnama fine književnosti". Blic. Retrieved 2013-08-16.
- Ivan Klajn's biography, at the webpage of Matica srpska
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