Jakov Mikalja | |
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| Born | (1601-03-31)March 31, 1601 |
| Died | December 1, 1654(1654-12-01) (aged 53) |
| Nationality | Kingdom of Naples |
| Other names | Jacobus Micalia, Jakov Mikalja |
| Occupation(s) | linguist andlexicographer |
Jakov Mikalja (Latin:Jacobus Micalia) (March 31, 1601 – December 1, 1654), was a Croatianlinguist andlexicographer. He was born in the town ofPeschici (Apulia), at that time under theKingdom of Naples. He said about himself to be "an Italian of Slavic language".[1][2]
Micaglia was born inPeschici,[3] a small town on theGargano peninsula that six centuries before (about 970)[4][5][6] was a settlement of Croat refugees[7][8] and that in those years entertained fruitful trade withVenice and the city-states on theDalmatian coast (like theRepublic of Ragusa).[5][6]
He was the great-uncle ofPietro Giannone (1676–1748), thehistorian born inIschitella, few kilometers by Peschici.[9][10] About it Giannone writes that«Scipio Giannone (his father) had married in Ischitella in 1677 Lucretia Micaglia, daughter of Matteo Micaglia from Peschici and Isabella Sabatello.»[11]
Because of his knowledge ofCroatian, Micaglia was dispatched to theRepublic of Ragusa by theJesuit order. It was the time ofCounter-Reformation and theCatholic Church wished to restore its power in theBalkans as well. For four years (1630–1633) he taught grammar at the Jesuit College inRagusa (Dubrovnik). There he wrote"Latin grammar for Illyrian students" afterEmanuel Alvares (De institutione grammatica pro Illyricis accommodata, 1637).
A few years later, in 1636, Micaglia sent a letter to theSacred Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith, proposing a reform of theLatin alphabet for the needs of Croatian.He discussed the same issue in the chapter"OnSlavicOrthography"[citation needed] of his work in Croatian"God-Loving Thoughts on theLord'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 inTimișoara in theBanat (present dayRomania). He came back toItaly, where he was confessor in Slavic languages at theBasilica della Santa Casa inLoreto, from 1645 till his death in that town.
Micaglia's greatest work isThesaurus of Slovinian Language and Slovinian Dictionary. It was first printed inLoreto in 1649, but a better printing press was needed, so it was completed inAncona in 1651. The dictionary was a Jesuit project, an instrument to fight theProtestant Reformation and even more the progression of the Muslim faith in theBalkans.
It was the firstCroatian 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[12][13] ). An important thing to note is that in his dictionary Micaglia names Croatian as "Illyric" or "Slovinian", and 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 anItalian grammar in Croatian (Grammatika Talianska).
Micaglia explains in the foreword that he chose theBosnian 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 theShtokavian dialect of the localSouth 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 the Shtokavian dialect, with some Chakavian parts, and even the Kaykavian lexic as an entry or synonym.[12] Mikalja's dictionary is regarded as a Croatian dictionary[7] by mainstream lexicographers and linguists.
Micaglia's thesaurus is a trilingual dictionary in which the entry column is, though, organised as amonolingual dictionary: with a sequence ofsynonyms founded on dialectical contrasts, as well as definitions, andhyperonims as explanations. Thus, Štokavian-Čakavian terms are accompanied by Bosnian Franciscan words,turcisms,Raguseisms and Croatian words. It has thus been said to illustrate the lexical wealth of the "Illyrian regions".[14]
From the cultural point of view, Micaglia's work was influenced by earlier works ofFausto Veranzio andBartolomeo Cassio. It influenced theCroatian circle of lexicographers (among them FranciscansDivković,Toma Babić andLovro Šitović), both in Croatia and inBosnia and Herzegovina. His work is integral todevelopment and standardization of Croatian modern language.
Printing of the "Thesaurus" was started by Serafini brothers in Loreto in 1649, and completed by O. Beltrano in Ancona in 1651.
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