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Revision as of 11:40, 26 November 2006
Jakov Mikalja (Micalia, Micaglia; Jacobus; March 31, 1601 - December 1, 1654) was a Croatian linguist and lexicographer, the author of an early Croatian dictionary.
Life
Mikalja was born in Peschici on the peninsula of Gargano in Italy, probably in a Croat family that emigrated to Italy (see Molise Croats). After completing the studies in philosophy in 1628, he became a Jesuit. For four years (1630-1633) Mikalja taught grammar at the Jesuit College in Dubrovnik. There he made a Latin grammar for Croatian students after Emanuel Alvares (De institutione grammatica pro Illyricis accommodata, Rome, 1637).
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" of his Croatian work 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 (Romania). He was the Croatian confessor in Loreto from 1645 till his death.
Dictionary
Mikalja's greatest work is Treasure of Slavic Language or Dictionary with Slavic Words in Latin and Italian. Its printing started in Loreto in 1649, but a better printing press was needed, so it was completed in Ancona in 1651.
It was the first Croatian dictionary with Croatian as the starting language.
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 chose the Shtokavian dialect (bosanski jezik or "Bosnian tongue", as he calls it) because everyone knows it is the most beautiful (Ogn'un dice che la lingua Bosnese sia la piu bella). The dictionary, intended primarily to teach students and young Jesuits, has around 25,000 Croatian words, mostly in the Ijekavian variant, with some Shtokavian and Chakavian Ikavian forms.
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 illi slovnik u komu izgovarajuse rjeci slovinske Latinski i Diacki (Thesaurus of the Slavic Language or Dictionary with Slavic Words in Latin and Italian, Ancona, 1651)