Ladislav Zgusta

Ladislav Zgusta
Born	(1924-03-20)20 March 1924 Libochovice, Czechoslovakia
Died	27 April 2007(2007-04-27) (aged 83) Urbana, Illinois
Nationality	Czech-American
Awards	Guggenheim fellowships (1977 and 1983)
Academic background
Alma mater	Charles University in Prague (Ph.D.)
Thesis	Lexicology of the Cypriot Dialect (1949)
Academic work
Discipline	Linguistics
Institutions	University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign
Main interests	Lexicography, Onomastics
Notable works	Manual of Lexicography

Ladislav Zgusta (20 March 1924 in Libochovice – 27 April 2007 in Urbana, Illinois) was a Czech-American historical linguist and lexicographer, who wrote one of the first textbooks on lexicography. He was the Hermann and Klara H. Collitz professor of linguistics and classics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, starting in 1970 after the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia ended his academic career at Prague's Oriental Institute. With his family he first escaped to India, "in a veritable cloak and dagger episode worthy of a movie" before making his way to the United States. Dutch lexicographer Piet van Sterkenburg referred to Zgusta as "the twentieth-century godfather of lexicography". He was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1992, and in the same year awarded the Gold Medal of the Czech Academy of Sciences for his work in Humanities.

Bibliography

• Die Personennamen griechischer Städte der nördlichen Schwarzmeerküste: Die ethnischen Verhältnisse, namentlich das Verhältnis der Skythen und Sarmaten, im Lichte der Namenforschung (Československá akademie ved. Monografie orientálního ústavu 16 ). Praha : Nakladatelstvi československé Akademie Ved 1955.
• Kleinasiatische Personennamen (Československá akademie ved. Monografie orientálního ústavu 19). Prag: Verlag der Tschechoslowakischen Akademie der Wissenschaften 1964
• Anatolische Personennamensippen. Teil 1: Text. Teil 2: Beilagen (Dissertationes Orientales 2). Prag: Academia 1964.
• Neue Beiträge zur kleinasiatischen Anthroponymie (Dissertationes orientales 24). Prag: Academia 1970.
• Manual of lexicography (Janua Linguarum. Series maior 39). Prague: Academia / The Hague, Paris: Mouton 1971 (in cooperation with V. Cerny i.a.).
• Kleinasiatische Ortsnamen (Beiträge zur Namenforschung, Beih. 21). Heidelberg: Carl Winter 1984 ISBN 3-533-03513-1.
• The old Ossetic inscription from the river Zelencuk (Veröffentlichungen der Iranischen Kommission = Sitzungsberichte der österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften. Philosophisch-historische Klasse 486). Wien : Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften 1987 ISBN 3-7001-0994-6
• Lexicography today: an annotated bibliography of the theory of lexicography (Lexicographica. Series maior 18). Tübingen: Niemeyer 1988 ISBN 3-484-30918-0 (with the assistance of Donna M. T. Cr. Farina).
• History, Languages and Lexicographers (Lexicographica. Series maior 41). Tübingen: Niemeyer 1992 ISBN 3-484-30941-5.
• Lexicography Then and Now. Selected Essays. (Lexicographica. Series maior 129. Edited by Fredric S.F. Dolezal and Thomas B.I. Creamer). Tübingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag 2006.

Editor

• Manual of Lexicography. 1971 ISBN 90-279-1921-6.

External links

• Biography Archived 2014-09-05 at the Wayback Machine in Czech
• In Memoriam by Hans Henrich Hock on LINGUIST List