A View into the Past and Future of (Croatian Historical) Lexicography

Sa？etak Starting with its key words — dictionary, lexicography, lexicographer — this article offers a synthetic overview of the history of (Croatian historical) lexicography. In addition to analyzing of paradigmatic differences between dictionaries based upon the idionorm of their compilers and contemporary dictionaries, which are compiled according to generally accepted lexicographic practices subject to the needs of a constantly growing and very heterogeneous population of users, it discusses both computer corpora and their role in the evaluation and perfection of lexicographic work. The article then narrows its focus to a description of Julije Bene？i？'s Dictionary of the Croatian Literary Language from the Revival to I. G. Kova？i？, a document from a recent period in the history of the Croatian language and literature that, from the perspective of contemporary linguistic relations, nonetheless belongs to historical lexicography