Ranko Matasović

Ranko Matasović
Born	(1968-05-14) 14 May 1968 Zagreb, SFR Yugoslavia (now Zagreb, Croatia)
Occupations	linguist, Indo-Europeanist, Celticist
Notable work	Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Celtic (2009)

Ranko Matasović (Croatian pronunciation: [râːŋko matǎːsoʋitɕ]; born 14 May 1968) is a Croatian linguist, Indo-Europeanist, and Celticist.

Biography

Matasović was born and raised in Zagreb, where he attended primary and secondary school. In the Faculty of philosophy at the University of Zagreb, he graduated in linguistics and philosophy, receiving an M.A. in linguistics in 1992 and a Ph.D. in 1995 under the supervision of Radoslav Katičić with the thesis A Theory of Textual Reconstruction in Indo-European Linguistics. He has received research fellowships at the University of Vienna (1993) and the University of Oxford (1995), a post-doctoral Fulbright Fellowship at the University of Wisconsin during 1997/1998 (with Andrew Sihler as an advisor), and also an Alexander von Humboldt Foundation fellowship at the University of Bonn in 2002/2003.

He currently holds a chair in the Department of Linguistics in the Faculty of Philosophy in Zagreb, where he teaches courses on comparative Indo-European grammar, Celtic studies, and language typology. His research interests include comparative Indo-European grammar (especially of Celtic and Balto-Slavic languages), language typology and syntax, and Latin, Celtic, and Hittite philology. He has contributed to the Indo-European Etymological Dictionary project organized by Leiden University with his Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Celtic. He has also published works on Armenian and Albanian, including the Arbanasi speech of the Albanian diaspora near Zadar.

In 2002, he received an award from the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts for a lasting contribution to philology. In 2006, he became an associate member of the same institution and was promoted into a full member in 2012.

In 2022, he was elected a member of the Academia Europaea.

Works

He has published more than 100 papers in Croatian and foreign-language journals and translated various works from Latin, Ancient Greek, Lithuanian, Hittite, Old and modern Irish, Welsh, and English.

Linguistics

• A Theory of Textual Reconstruction in Indo-European Linguistics (Frankfurt a/M & New York: Peter Lang, 1996)
• Kratka poredbenopovijesna gramatika latinskoga jezika [A Short Comparative-Historical Grammar of Latin] (Zagreb: Matica hrvatska, ¹1997, ²2010) ,
• Kultura i književnost Hetita [Hittite Culture and Literature] (Zagreb; Matica hrvatska, 2000)
• Uvod u poredbenu lingvistiku [An Introduction to Comparative Linguistics] (Zagreb: Matica hrvatska, 2001)
• Hrvatski enciklopedijski rječnik [Encyclopedic Dictionary of Croatian], co-edited with Ljiljana Jojić, Vladimir Anić, et al. (Zagreb: Novi Liber, ¹2002, ²2004–2005)
• Gender in Indo-European (Heidelberg: Carl Winter, 2004)
• Jezična raznolikost svijeta [Linguistic Diversity of the World] (Zagreb: Algoritam, ¹2005, ²2011) ,
• Poredbenopovijesna gramatika hrvatskoga jezika [A Comparative-Historical Grammar of Croatian] (Zagreb: Matica hrvatska, 2008.)
• Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Celtic (Leiden & Boston: Brill, 2009)
  • “Addenda et corrigenda to Ranko Matasović’s Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Celtic (Brill, Leiden 2009)” (Zagreb, 2011)
• A Reader in Comparative Indo-European Religion (Zagreb: University of Zagreb, 2010)
• Etimološki rječnik hrvatskoga jezika: 1. svezak (A-Nj), 2. svezak (O-Ž) [Etymological Dictionary of Croatian Language], edited, co-authored with Tijmen Pronk, Dubravka Ivšić, Dunja Brozović Rončević (Zagreb: Institut za hrvatski jezik i jezikoslovlje, 2016–2021) ,
• Slavic Nominal Word-Formation: Proto-Indo-European Origins and Historical Development (Heidelberg: Carl Winter, 2014)
• Lingvistička povijest Europe [Linguistic History of Europe] (Zagreb: Matica hrvatska, 2016)
• An Areal Typology of Agreement Systems (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018)

Translations

• Harfa sa sjevera. Iz irske književnosti (Zagreb: Antibarbarus, 1995)
• Koje je vrijeme? Suvremena irska pripovijetka (Zagreb: Matica hrvatska, 1997)
• Kamen kraljeva. Srednjovjekovne irske sage (Zagreb: Ex Libris, 2004)
• Sveti Patrik. Djela / Opera (Confessio sancti Patricii episcopi; Epistole ad milites Corotici) (Zagreb: Antibarbarus, 2004)
• Četiri grane Mabinogija (Zagreb: ArTresor, 2005)
• J. P. Mallory. Indoeuropljani: Zagonetka njihova podrijetla - jezik, arheologija, mit (Zagreb: Školska knjiga, 2006)
• Narti: Mitovi i legende s Kavkaza (Zagreb: Matica hrvatska, 2010)
• Edward Sapir. Jezik: Uvod u istraživanje govora (Zagreb: Institut za hrvatski jezik i jezikoslovlje)
• Ksenofont. O konjaničkom umijeću; O zapovjedniku konjice, with Maja Rupnik-Matasović (Zagreb: Latina et Graeca, 2018)
• Plaut. Stiho (Zagreb: Latina et Graeca, 2022), with Maja Rupnik-Matasović
• Dvadeset pjesama o ljubavi i smrti (i kratkih priča o njima) (Zagreb: Matica hrvatska, 2023)
• Plaut. Prostak (Zagreb: Latina et Graeca, 2023), with Maja Rupnik-Matasović

Fiction

• Neprobuđeni. Roman (Zagreb: Ibis grafika, 2022)

External links

• Personal web page of Ranko Matasović
• (in Croatian) A Conversation with R. Matasović, Vijenac, November 6, 2008