Description

A Slovenian citizen of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Franz Miklosich (1813-91) studied at the University of Graz before moving to Vienna in 1838. Indo-European philology was a growing area of research, and in 1844 Miklosich reviewed Bopp's Comparative Grammar (also reissued in this series) and embarked upon extending the comparative method across the whole Slavonic language family. Miklosich's work marked a watershed in Slavonic studies; in 1849 he became Austria's first professor of Slavonic philology. His publications included editions of historical sources; work on loan words, place names, and Romany dialects; a dictionary of Old Church Slavonic; and a four-volume comparative grammar of the Slavonic languages (1852-74, also available). This etymological dictionary of the Slavonic languages was published in 1886, the year of Miklosich's retirement. It encompasses Old Slavonic forms (where attested), the whole range of modern Slavonic languages, and loan words, and includes an index for 'difficult to find' words.