Dalibor Brozović

Croatian linguist and politician (1927–2009)

Dalibor Brozović

Born| (1927-07-28)28 July 1927

Sarajevo, Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes

Died| 19 June 2009(2009-06-19) (aged 81)

Zagreb, Croatia

Occupation| Linguist
Relatives| Ranko Matasović (nephew)[1]

Dalibor Brozović (Croatian pronunciation: [dǎlibor brǒːzoʋit͡ɕ]; 28 July 1927 – 19 June 2009) was a Croatian linguist, Slavist, dialectologist and politician. He studied the history of standard languages in the Slavic region, especially Croatian. He was an active Esperantist since 1946, and wrote Esperanto poetry as well as translated works into the language.[2]

## Life and career

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He was born in Sarajevo[3] and went to primary school in Zenica. Then he went to comprehensive secondary schools in Visoko, Sarajevo and Zagreb. He received a BA degree in the Croatian language and Yugoslav literatures at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Zagreb.[3] In 1957, he received his Ph.D. with the thesis Speech in the Fojnica Valley.

Brozović worked as an assistant at the Zagreb Theater Academy (1952–1953) and as a lecturer at the University of Ljubljana (until 1956). He subsequently went to the Faculty of Philosophy in Zadar, becoming an associate professor (1956), docent (1958), extraordinary (1962) and full (1968-1990) professor. In 1969 he worked as a visiting professor at the University of Michigan, and since 1971 at the University of Regensburg.

In 1975 he became an associate, and in 1977 extraordinary, and in 1986 full member of the Yugoslav Academy of Sciences and Arts. Since 1986 he was an external member of the Macedonian Academy of Sciences and Arts, and since 1991 of the Academia Europaea.

Since 1946 he was a member of the Communist Party.[4] In the late 1980s, he was a co-founder and vice-president of the Croatian Democratic Union, which would win the 1990 elections. According to Croatian national television documentary “War before war”, he was informer of Yugoslavian secret service (SDS) and operated under code name “Forum” until early 1990. He was the vice-president of the presidency of the Republic of Croatia (in 1990) and a member of the Croatian Parliament (1992-1995). In the period 1991-2001 he headed the Miroslav Krleža Lexicographical Institute. He edited the Atlas of European and Slavic Dialectology. In 2012, Viktor Ivančić identified Brozović as the individual within the institute primarily accountable for directing the disposal and destruction of 40,000 copies of the Encyclopedia of Yugoslavia in the early 1990s.[5]

## Linguistic importance

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Brozović has been described as one of the most influential Croatian linguists of the 20th century.[6] However, this view is given from an extremely nationalist perspective, as Brozović was known to often abandon linguistics for an extremely nationalist discourse.[7][8][9] Among his main works are the book Standardni jezik ("Standard Language") (1970) and the article "Hrvatski jezik, njegovo mjesto unutar južnoslavenskih i drugih slavenskih jezika, njegove povijesne mijene kao jezika hrvatske književnosti" (Croatian: Its Place among the South Slavic and Other Slavic Languages, Its Historical Changes as the Language of Croatian Literature, 1978). The former gives a typology of standard languages, which however meets criticism for containing disputable and vague criteria.[10][11] The latter divides the history of Croatian into three pre-standard and three standard periods. Whereas it was widely believed that Croatian was only standardized around the time of the Illyrian movement and Ljudevit Gaj, Brozović argued that the standardization began around 1600 and greatly developed around 1750. However, this Brozović's article also faces criticism due to the fact that "in the 18th century, there was no standard language (’überdachende’ sprachliche Entität), which would roof Kajkavian and Shtokavian".[12] In other words, the major standardization activities took place only in the 19th century.[13]

Brozović was one of the authors of the Declaration on the Status and Name of the Croatian Standard Language, an influential programmatic statement against Yugoslavian linguistic unitarianism from a Croatian nationalist perspective.[14] Two years before Declaration, Brozović denied the existence of Yugoslavian linguistic unitarism: "for Croato-Serbian language as language, as linguistic phenomenon, as language in the Slavic family, there has been no need to unify: it has always been a unity".[15] Retrospectively, west European scientists judge the Yugoslav language policy as an exemplary one.[16][17][18] In 2012, Josip Manolić publicly claimed that the secret police of Yugoslavia (UDBA) had one of its agents, code named "Forum", contribute to the Declaration, and journalists linked Brozović to this pseudonym.[19][20]

Instead of Serbo-Croatian, Brozović preferred the term Central South Slavic diasystem,[21][22] asserting separate language status for Croatian and Serbian. However, Brozović advocated the term "Croato-Serbian" even in 1988.[23] As far as language status is concerned, Brozović has asserted for nearly three decades that "the Serbian and Croatian variants are (...) phenomenons, which are analogous to the English and American variants";[24] "As in other cases where several nations use one standard language (German, Dutch, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese as standard languages), the standard Croato-Serbian language is not unified. In linguistics (especially in sociolinguistics), the realizations of such standard languages are called variants of a standard language".[25] Brozović maintained that it is "a fact that Serbs and Croats have a common language",[26] and he described it as pluricentric even in 1992.[27] In the 1990s, Brozović became one of the leading proponents of linguistic purism in Croatia.[9][28]

Brozović states that the list of 100 words of the basic Croatian, Serbian, Bosnian, and Montenegrin vocabulary, as set out by Morris Swadesh, shows that all 100 words are identical.[29] According to Swadesh, at least twenty words must differ if they are to be considered as different languages.[30]

Brozović received the Zadar City Award for a prominent scientific activity (for the book Standardni jezik) in the 1970, and an Award for Life's Work of the Republic of Croatia in 1992.

## Works

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* Rječnik jezika ili jezik rječnika (Dictionary of a Language or a Language of Dictionaries), Zagreb, 1969
* Standardni jezik (Standard Language), Zagreb, 1970
* Deset teza o hrvatskome jeziku (Ten Theses on Croatian), Zagreb, 1971[31]
* Hrvatski jezik, njegovo mjesto unutar južnoslavenskih i drugih slavenskih jezika, njegove povijesne mijene kao jezika hrvatske književnosti (Croatian: Its Place among the South Slavic and Other Slavic Languages, Its Historical Changes as the Language of Croatian Literature), in a book by a collective of authors, Zagreb, 1978
* Fonologija hrvatskoga književnog jezika (Phonology of the Croatian Standard Language) in the book by a collective of authors Povijesni pregled, glasovi i oblici hrvatskoga književnog jezika (Historical Overview, Sounds and Forms of the Croatian Standard Language), Zagreb, 1991
* Prvo lice jednine (First Person Singular: Coll. of previously publ. articles), Zagreb, 2005[9]

## See also

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* Ausbausprache
* Differences between Serbo-Croatian standard varieties
* Language secessionism in Serbo-Croatian
* Mutual intelligibility
* Pluricentric Serbo-Croatian language
* Serbo-Croatian language
* South Slavic dialect continuum
* South Slavic languages
* Standard language

## References

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1. ^ Kordić 2007, p. 195.
2. ^ Pleadin, Josip (2002). "Biografia leksikono de kroatiaj esperantistoj" (in Esperanto). Đurđevac: Grafokom.
3. ^ a b Kosta Milutinović (1971). Živan Milisavac (ed.). Jugoslovenski književni leksikon [Yugoslav Literary Lexicon] (in Serbo-Croatian). Novi Sad (SAP Vojvodina, SR Serbia): Matica srpska. p. 53.
4. ^ Bilosnić, Tomislav Marijan (13 March 2012). "Dr. Ante Franić: Dalekometni ciljevi Deklaracije" [Dr. Ante Franić: Long-range goals of the Declaration]. Zadarski list. Zadar. p. 16\. ISSN 1333-316X. Retrieved 13 July 2015.
5. ^ Viktor Ivančić (13 July 2012). "Mržnja prema knjizi" [Hatred Towards the Book]. Peščanik. Retrieved 8 March 2024.
6. ^ "Dalibor Brozović". Večernji list (in Serbo-Croatian). Zagreb. ISSN 0350-5006. Archived from the original on January 2, 2014. Retrieved January 2, 2014.
7. ^ Kordić, Snježana (2003). "Demagogija umjesto znanosti (odgovor Daliboru Brozoviću)" [Demagogy instead of science (response to Dalibor Brozović)] (PDF). Književna republika (in Serbo-Croatian). 1 (7–8). Zagreb: 176–202\. ISSN 1334-1057. S2CID 171739712. SSRN 3433060. CROSBI 430252. ZDB-ID 2122129-7. Archived (PDF) from the original on 23 August 2012. Retrieved 17 March 2019.7–8&rft.pages=176-202&rft.date=2003&rft_id=https://api.semanticscholar.org/CorpusID:171739712#id-name=S2CID&rft_id=https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3433060#id-name=SSRN&rft.issn=1334-1057&rft.au=Kordić,+Snježana&rft_id=http://bib.irb.hr/datoteka/430252.DEMAGOGIJA_UMJESTO_ZNANOSTI.PDF&rfr_id=info:sid/en.wikipedia.org:Dalibor+Brozović" class="Z3988"> (CROLIB).
8. ^ Zanelli, Aldo (2018). Eine Analyse der Metaphern in der kroatischen Linguistikfachzeitschrift Jezik von 1991 bis 1997 [Analysis of Metaphors in Croatian Linguistic Journal Language from 1991 to 1997]. Studien zur Slavistik ; 41 (in German). Hamburg: Dr. Kovač. pp. 12–13\. ISBN 978-3-8300-9773-0. OCLC 1023608613. (NSK). (FFZG)
9. ^ a b c Kordić 2007, pp. 184–195.
10. ^ Tolstoj, Nikita Iljič (1985). "Славянские литературные языки и их отношение к другим языковым идиомам (стратам)" [Slavic Standard Languages and their relationship to idioms]. In Guchman, M. M. (ed.). Функциональная стратификация языка [Functional stratification of language] (in Russian). Moscow. pp. 12, 14. OCLC 762388602.`{{cite book}}`: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
11. ^ Tolstoj, Nikita Iljič (1988). История и структура славянских литературных языков [History and Structure of Slavic Standard Languages] (PDF) (in Russian). Moscow: Nauka. pp. 11–14\. ISBN 5-02-010890-1. Retrieved 7 September 2012.
12. ^ "da es eine das Kajkavische und Štokavische ’überdachende’ sprachliche Entität im 18. Jh. nicht gegeben hat" (Gröschel 2009, p. 90)
13. ^ Gröschel 2009, pp. 8–12.
14. ^ "SOS ili tek alibi za nasilje nad jezikom" [SOS or nothing but an alibi for violence against language] (in Serbo-Croatian). Zagreb: Forum. 16 March 2012. pp. 38–39\. ISSN 1848-204X. CROSBI 578565. Archived from the original on 21 December 2012. Retrieved 9 August 2018.
15. ^ "hrvatskosrpski jezik kao jezik, kao lingvistički fenomen, kao jedan od jezika slavenske porodice, nije ni trebalo izjednačivati: on je oduvijek bio jedan" (Brozović 1965, p. 38)
16. ^ Busch, Brigitta; Kelly-Holmes, Helen, eds. (2004). Language, Discourse and Borders in the Yugoslav Successor States. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. pp. 51, 54, 59. OCLC 803615012.
17. ^ Mappes-Niediek, Norbert (2005). Die Ethno-Falle: der Balkan-Konflikt und was Europa daraus lernen kann [The Ethnic Trap: the Balkan conflict and what Europe can learn from it] (in German). Berlin: Ch. Links Verlag. pp. 18, 64. ISBN 978-3-86153-367-2. OCLC 61665869.
18. ^ Gröschel 2009, p. 72.
19. ^ Ivančić, Viktor (11 July 2015). "Udio Udbe" [Contribution of the UDBA] (in Serbo-Croatian). Zagreb: Novosti. ISSN 1845-8955. Archived from the original on 14 July 2015. Retrieved 8 August 2015.
20. ^ Mamić, Tomislav (7 June 2015). "Manolić otkriva u memoarima: na pripremi Deklaracije o hrvatskom jeziku radili su i dugogodišnji agenti Udbe! (2. dio feljtona)" [Manolić reveals in his memoirs: long-standing Udba agents had been working on the preparation of the Declaration about the Croatian language! (2nd part of the feuillton)]. Jutarnji list (in Serbo-Croatian). Zagreb. ISSN 1331-5692. Archived from the original on 12 September 2015. Retrieved 3 February 2016.
21. ^ Deset teza o hrvatskom jeziku, Zagreb, 1971, published in:
* Susreti 6, Zbornik radova sa susreta hrvatskih studenata u tuđini (1981-1986), Zagreb-Bochum, 1986, str. 136-145, under title O ključnim pitanjima hrvatskoga književnog jezika
* the book Stjepan Babić: Hrvatski jezik u političkom vrtlogu, 1990, str. 271-283, under title Deset teza o hrvatskome jeziku,
* the two editions of Deklaracija o hrvatskome jeziku, Matica hrvatska, Zagreb 1991.
* Hrvatska revija
* Journal of Croatian Studies

22. ^ Kordić, Snježana (2010). Jezik i nacionalizam [Language and Nationalism] (PDF). Rotulus Universitas (in Serbo-Croatian). Zagreb: Durieux. pp. 74–77\. doi:10.2139/ssrn.3467646. ISBN 978-953-188-311-5. LCCN 2011520778. OCLC 729837512. OL 15270636W. S2CID 220918333. CROSBI 475567. Archived (PDF) from the original on 1 June 2012. Retrieved 14 April 2015.
23. ^ Brozović 1988, p. 4.
24. ^ "srpska i hrvatska varijanta predstavljaju [...] fenomene analogne engleskoj i američkoj varijanti" (Brozović 1965, pp. 35–36)
25. ^ "Kao i u drugim slučajevima kada se jednim standardnim jezikom služi više nacija (njemački, nizozemski, engleski, francuski, španjolski, portugalski standandardni jezik), standardni hrvatskosrpski jezik nije jedinstven. Realizacijski oblici takvih standardnih jezika nazivaju se u lingvistici (prvenstveno u sociolingvistici) varijantama standardnog jezika" (Brozović 1988, p. 102)
26. ^ "činjenica da Srbi i Hrvati imaju zajednički jezik" (Brozović 1965, p. 41)
27. ^ Brozović, Dalibor (1992). "Serbo-Croatian as a pluricentric language". In Clyne, Michael G (ed.). Pluricentric Languages: Differing Norms in Different Nations. Contributions to the sociology of language 62. Berlin & New York: Mouton de Gruyter. pp. 347–380\. ISBN 3-11-012855-1. OCLC 24668375.
28. ^ Czerwiński, Maciej (2005). Język – ideologia – naród: polityka językowa w Chorwacji a język mediów [Language – ideology – nation: Language policy in Croatia and the language of media] (in Polish). Kraków: Scriptum. p. 131\. ISBN 8360163049. OCLC 64586273.
29. ^ Brozović, Dalibor (2002). "Europske integracije i hrvatski jezik" [European Integrations and Croatian]. Jezik (in Serbo-Croatian). 49 (4): 124. ISSN 0021-6925.
30. ^ Kloss, Heinz (1976). "Abstandsprachen und Ausbausprachen" [Abstand-languages and Ausbau-languages]. In Göschel, Joachim; Nail, Norbert; van der Els, Gaston (eds.). Zur Theorie des Dialekts: Aufsätze aus 100 Jahren Forschung. Zeitschrift fur Dialektologie and Linguistik, Beihefte, n.F., Heft 16. Wiesbaden: F. Steiner. p. 303\. OCLC 2598722.
31. ^ This work was originally an intro on Savjetovanje o Osnovama nastavnog plana i programa hrvatskog književnog jezika s književnošću za srednje škole, held in hotels "Solaris" in Šibenik, Croatia, 22–24 November 1971, in organization of Republička konferencija Saveza omladine Hrvatske. Abroad, this work was published in Hrvatska revija in Croatian, and in Journal of Croatian Studies in English.

Works cited

* Brozović, Dalibor (1965). "O problemima varijanata" [On problem of variants]. Jezik (in Serbo-Croatian). 13 (2): 38. ISSN 0021-6925.
* Brozović, Dalibor (1988). "Jezik, srpskohrvatski/hrvatskosrpski, hrvatski ili srpski" [Language, Serbo-Croatian/Croato-Serbian, Croatian or Serbian : Extract From the Second Edition of the Encyclopedia of Yugoslavia]. Jezik, srpskohrvatski/hrvatskosrpski, hrvatski ili srpski : izdavak iz II izdanja Enciklopedije Jugoslavije (in Serbo-Croatian). Zagreb: Jugoslavenski Leksikografski Zavod "Miroslav Krleža". p. 102\. ISBN 86-7053-014-7. OCLC 645757653.
* Gröschel, Bernhard (2009). Das Serbokroatische zwischen Linguistik und Politik: mit einer Bibliographie zum postjugoslavischen Sprachenstreit [Serbo-Croatian Between Linguistics and Politics: With a Bibliography of the Post-Yugoslav Language Dispute]. Lincom Studies in Slavic Linguistics ; vol 34 (in German). Munich: Lincom Europa. p. 451\. ISBN 978-3-929075-79-3. LCCN 2009473660. OCLC 428012015. OL 15295665W.
* Kordić, Snježana (2007). "Diktatom protiv argumenata: recenzija knjige Dalibora Brozovića, Prvo lice jednine" [Order as device against arguments: Review of Dalibor Brozović’s First Person Singular] (PDF). Književna republika (in Serbo-Croatian). 5 (1–2). Zagreb: 184–195\. ISSN 1334-1057. SSRN 3432962. CROSBI 429738. CEEOL 51270. ZDB-ID 2122129-7. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2 September 2012. Retrieved 11 July 2013.1–2&rft.pages=184-195&rft.date=2007&rft_id=https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3432962#id-name=SSRN&rft.issn=1334-1057&rft.aulast=Kordić&rft.aufirst=Snježana&rft_id=http://bib.irb.hr/datoteka/429738.rev._art._BROZOVIC.PDF&rfr_id=info:sid/en.wikipedia.org:Dalibor+Brozović" class="Z3988"> (NSK).

## External links

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In Serbo-Croatian:

* Dalibor Brozović, academy member
* Dalibor Brozović: interview
* The Organic Foundation of Croatian

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