Academic Dževad Jahić has passed away

(Patria) - The President of the Bosniak Cultural Community Preporod, Sanjin Kodrić, announced that academic Dževad Jahić has passed away.

Academic Jahić was born on August 15, 1948, in Mostar.

"He was our most significant linguist-Bosniakist. A noble and good man, a teacher and a friend... May God Almighty have mercy on him. Information about the commemoration, funeral, and burial will be announced later," Kodrić's announcement on Facebook reads.

Jahić was the most renowned Bosnian linguist. He strongly advocated for the affirmation of the Bosnian language. He is also the author of the most comprehensive Dictionary of the Bosnian Language to date.

He completed primary and secondary school in Rogatica. He graduated from the Department of Serbo-Croatian Language and Yugoslav Literature at the Faculty of Philology in Belgrade in 1973. He defended his master's thesis titled “Hunting Terminology and Hunting Slang in the Speech of the Rogatica Region” at the Faculty of Philosophy in Sarajevo in 1977. He defended his doctoral dissertation titled “Ijekavian-Štokavian Dialects of Eastern and Southeastern Bosnia” in 1981 at the Faculty of Philology in Belgrade. He worked at the Institute for Language and Literature in Sarajevo. He has been working at the Faculty of Philosophy since 1975. In 1983, he was appointed assistant professor, in 1989 associate professor, and in 2002 full professor for the subjects Historical Grammar and History of the Bosnian Literary Language. From 1989 to 1993, he was a lecturer and professor of Serbo-Croatian Language and Yugoslav Literatures at the Department of Slavic Languages of the Faculty of Philology at Moscow State University.

Jahić's areas of scientific interest include dialectology, language history, and sociolinguistics, in which he published a number of works in scientific journals (Južnoslovenski filolog, Zbornik za filologiju i lingvistiku, Slavjanskoje slavjanovedenije, Pregled, Sveske Instituta za proučavanje nacionalnih odnosa). He is a member of the Bosniak Academy of Sciences and Arts.

In addition to his scientific work, he was also involved in literary work and published several poetry collections.