Belic, Aleksandr

Born Aug. 2, 1876, in Belgrade; died there on Nov. 26, 1960. Serbian linguist. President of the Serbian Academy of Sciences (1937). Foreign member of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR (1910). Professor at the University of Belgrade (1905). Honorary professor at the universities of Moscow (1947), Prague, Glasgow, and others.

In the study of the dialectology, history, and grammar of the modern Serbian language, the following works by Belie have played a fundamental role: Dialects of Eastern and Southern Serbia (1905), Dialectological Map of the Serbian Language (1905), Modern Serbo-Croatian (vols. 1–2, 1948–49), and A History of the Serbo-Croatian Language (vols. 1–2, 1950–51). Belić has also made important contributions to the comparative grammar of Slavic languages, including such works as Accentual Studies (1914), On the Dual Number in Slavic Languages (1932), and The Origin of the Proto-Slavic Verbal System (1935). In his views on general linguistics, Belić at first was a member of the neogram-marian school, but then, after breaking away from that group, he created the so-called Belgrade school. Belic’s fundamental views on general linguistics are set forth in his work On the Nature of Language and Linguistic Development (vols. 1–2, 1941–59). Belie was the founder (1913) and editor of the journal Juzhnoslovenski filolog (The South Slav Philologist).