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Jakov Mikalja

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Mikalja's dictionary
View of Peschici in the Italian Province of Foggia, the hometown of Jakov Mikalja

Jakov Mikalja or Giacomo Micaglia; Template:Lang-la; (March 31, 1601 - December 1, 1654) was an Italian jesuit, linguist and lexicographer of Croatian descent from the Kingdom of Naples. Jakov Mikalja was born in Peschici (in Croatian: Pještica), Apulia.

Life

Micaglia was born in Peschici (Pještica), a small town on the Gargano peninsula that years before (about 970) was a Croat settlement and that time entertained fruitful trade with Venice and the towns on the Dalmatian coast.

He was the great-uncle of Pietro Giannone, the historian born in Ischitella, few kilometers by Peschici. About it Giannone writes that "Scipio Giannone had married in Ischitella in 1677 Lucretia Micaglia, daughter of Matteo Micaglia from Peschici and Isabella Sabatello." Because of his knowledge of the Croatian language, Micalja 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 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" 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 Italy, where he was confessor in Slavic languages at the Basilica della Santa Casa in Loreto, from 1645 till his death.

Dictionary

View of the Loreto Basilica, where Mikalja spent his last years.

Micalja'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 ). An Important thing to note is that Mikalja names in his dictionary 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 chose 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. Mikalja's dictionary is regarded as a Croatian dictionary 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.

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 "Thesaurus" was started by Serafini brothers in Loreto in 1649, and completed by O. Beltrano in Ancona in 1651.

References

  1. Hrvatski leksikon 2 L - Ž, Naklada Leksikon d.o.o., Zagreb, 1997, ISBN 953-96728-0-5
  2. Ivo Banac, Hrvatsko jezično pitanje Vol. 6, P. 43, of Mladost, 1991, ISBN 9788676490035 Template:Hr icon
  3. Edward L. Keenan, Josef Dobrovský and the origins of the Igor' tale Harvard University Press ISBN 9780916458966
  4. ^ Template:It icon3. RAI International Online - Lingue diverse dall’italiano in Italia
  5. ^ Template:It icon Università degli studi di Roma "La Sapienza" - P. Giannone, Vita scritta da lui medesimo
  6. Croatian Academy of America, Journal of Croatian studies, p. 286 Volumes 36-37, 1997 Template:Hr icon Template:En icon
  7. Mitchell Young, Eric Zuelow, Andreas Sturm; Nationalism in a global era: the persistence of nations, p.208; Routledge, 2007 ISBN 0-41541-405-9; "...extols the work of Croatians such as Jakov Mikalja;"
  8. Muzej hrvatskih starina (1994), p. 93.
  9. Cod. Dipl. Tremiti, document n.47
  10. «Ser Antonio de Stephano de Ragusio et Ser Marco de Johanne fanno costruire in società una nave de la portata de carra 250. Ditta costruzione debia avvenire in terra Peschice. La dispesa sarà di ducati 500» Cod. Dipl. Barl., 1570 vol. 10, n.28>
  11. “In Peschice de Gargano si costruisce una nave pro parte Johannis de Natali de Ragusio, Baroli commorantis”. Il calefatore è Marinus de Ragusio.Cod. Dipl. Barl., 1570 vol. 10, n.380>
  12. Template:Hr icon Vjesnik Inoslav Bešker: Hrvatski korijeni Peschichija, Nov 3, 1998
  13. «Ser Antonio de Stephano de Ragusio et Ser Marco de Johanne fanno costruire in società una nave de la portata de carra 250. Ditta costruzione debia avvenire in terra Peschice. La dispesa sarà di ducati 500» Cod. Dipl. Barl., 1570 vol. 10, n.28>
  14. “In Peschice de Gargano si costruisce una nave pro parte Johannis de Natali de Ragusio, Baroli commorantis”. Il calefatore è Marinus de Ragusio.Cod. Dipl. Barl., 1570 vol. 10, n.380>
  15. Template:It icon Pietro Giannone Opere Vol. 46, Tomo I
  16. Croat
  17. ^ Template:Hr icon IHJJ - About Jakov Mikalja
  18. IHJJ - Scanned page
  19. Van Antwerf Fine, John (2006). When ethnicity did not matter in the Balkans: a study of identity in pre-nationalist Croatia, Dalmatia, and Slavonia in the medieval and early-modern periods. University of Michigan: University of Michigan Press.

Bibliography

External links

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