IEC: Antoni Maria Badia i Margarit, some of his work

(Barcelona, 1920 - 2014)

Antoni Maria Badia i Margarit completed his studies at the Estudis Universitaris Catalans and the University of Barcelona, where he graduated in Romance Philology in 1943. His doctoral thesis was based on a study of historical morphology (1947), which was led by Dámaso Alonso. 

By 1948, he was already senior lecturer in historical grammar of the Spanish language at the University of Barcelona, and in 1977, for the historical grammar of the Catalan language too. 
 Badia i Margarit devoted himself to research in the field of historical linguistics, particularly the Catalan language, and followed the great traditions of Ramón Menéndez Pidal: morphologic, phonetic, semantic and general themes ("Estudios de fonética y fonología catalanas" (Studies in Catalan phonetics and phonology), 1948). He was also interested in dialectology, linguistic geography ("Atlas lingüístic del domino català"/Linguistic Atlas of the presence of Catalan) and onomastics, comparative studies, the history of linguists, linguistic sociology and grammar (Llengua i cultura als Països Catalans, 1964 and La llengua dels barcelonins, 1969).

He attended congresses and lived in Germany (Heidelberg) and the USA (Georgetown, Washington, Madison). In addition to his teaching and research work, he also produced a number of publications such as: "Gramática histórica catalana" (Historical Catalan Grammar) (1951, translated into Catalan in 1981) and "Gramática catalana" (Catalan Grammar) (1962), "La llengua catalana ahir i avui" (Catalan Language yesterday and today" (1973), "Vint-i-cinc anys d'estudis sobre la llengua i la literatura catalanes. La llengua" (25 years of studies about Catalan language and literature)(1976), "Ciència i passió dins la cultura  catalana"

(Science and passion in Catalan culture" (1977), "Formulari administratiu, aplicat especialment a la Universitat" (Administrative form, applied especially to the University) ( (1979), in collaboration with Carles Duarte, "La formació de la llengua catalana. Assaig d'interpretació històrica" (The formation of the Catalan language. Test of historical interpretation) (1981) and "Llengua i poder" (Language and power) (1986), "Gramàtica Catalana. Descriptiva, normativa, diatòpica, diastràtica" (Catalan grammar. Descriptive, normative, diatopic, diastratic) (1995), "Les Regles de esquivar vocables" (Rules of avoiding words) i 'la qüestió de la llengua’ (The language issue)(1999).

2012, Receiving the Gold Medal of the Catalan Government

Since 1987, he’s been head of the PatRom Catalan Team (Patronymica Romanica), working in the preparation of a dictionary of Romance lineage coordinated by the University of Trier (Germany). He’s been director of the magazine Estudis Romànics since 2000. He was also the president of the Associació Internacional de Llengua i Literatura Catalanes (1973-76) and the Grup Català de Sociolingüística in 1974, as well as the vice-chancellor of the University of Barcelona (1978-86), of which he is currently the emeritus vice-chancellor. He was awarded Doctor Honoris Causa from the Universities of Salzburg (1972), Tolosa (1980), Sorbonne (1986), Perpignan (1989), Knox College of Galesburg (Illinois, 1990), Alicante (2002) and Valencia (2005). He is also a member of the Acadèmia de Bones Lletres de Barcelona(1955) and the Institut d'Estudis Catalans (1968). In 1995 he was awarded by the Fundació Jaume I and by the Fundació Catalana per a la Recerca in 1996. He received the Gold Medal of the City of Barcelona [Medalla d'Or de la Ciutat de Barcelona] in 1999 for his scientific merits, and also the Premi d'Honor de les Lletres Catalanes (2003). In 2012 he received de Gold Medal of the Catalan Government (Generalitat)