Ivan Klajn


Ivan Klajn is a Serbian linguist, philologist and language historian, with primary interest in Romance languages and Serbian. He is a regular member of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts, and the editor-in-chief of the Matica srpska's journal Jezik danas. Through his paternal family, which lived in Vukovar for generations, he is of Croatian-Jewish descent.
He completed the studies of the Italian language and literature at the University of Belgrade Faculty of Philology. After graduation, he started working at the same faculty, becoming a regular professor of the Italian language and the comparative grammar of Romance languages. Beside Romance Studies, his interest also lies in the language morphology, linguistic consultancy and the standardization of the modern Serbian language. His major works are the Rečnik jezičkih nedoumica, Tvorba reči u savremenom srpskom jeziku and Italijansko-srpski rečnik.
In 2017, he has signed the Declaration on the Common Language of the Croats, Serbs, Bosniaks and Montenegrins.

Books and articles

Since 1974 he started writing weekly columns on the problems of modern Serbo-Croatian, first in Borba, and afterward in Politika and NIN.
He is the editor-in-chief of the linguistic journal Jezik danas, published by Matica srpska. He published a number of papers in linguistic journals, as well as 18 books:
In co-autorhsip with Pavle Ivić, Mitar Pešikan and Branislav Brborić he wrote Jezički priručnik, published by Radio Television Belgrade. In the miscellany Srpski jezik na kraju veka he wrote a part dealing with lexis. His Rečnik jezičkih nedoumica was reprinted in 6 editions. For his Italijansko-srpski rečnik, he received an award from the Italian government.

Translation

He translated a number of books from Italian and English. His translation of the Giordano Bruno's Il Candelaio was played at the Atelje 212 in Belgrade. He was one of the editors of the Serbian edition of the Cambridge Encyclopedia of Languages, and of the translators of the Serbian edition of the Encyclopedic dictionary of modern linguistics.

Membership

He is a member of the Vukova zadužbina Council and the Board for Standardization of the Serbian Language. He is a member and the contributor of Matica srpska.