Biography
Alen Kalajdžija was born on December 31, 1977 in Sarajevo. After primary education in Sarajevo and high school in Madrasa “Dr. Ahmed Smailović” in Zagreb, in 1997 he enrolled at the Faculty of Philosophy, University of Sarajevo, where he graduated in 2002 from the Department of Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian Language and Literature.
In 2003 he enrolled in the Postgraduate Study in Linguistics at the Faculty of Philosophy in Sarajevo, where he defended his master’s thesis in 2007. He worked at the Faculty of Humanities of the Džemal Bijedić University in Mostar from academic year 2002 to 2012.
In the period 2003–2011 he reviewed over 30 primary and secondary school textbooks for the subject Bosnian Language and Literature. He has had several international professional trainings in Germany (Würzburg, Erlangen). In the academic year 2007/2008 he was employed at the Thracian University of the Republic of Turkey at the Department of Bosnian Language, where he was elected Assistant Professor. He served for many years as Secretary of the Journal Istraživanja of the Faculty of Humanities.
In 2010 he co-authored with Munir Drkić in Mostar and published the book Omer Humo: Sehletul-vusul. In 2013, at the Language institute of the University of Sarajevo, in Edicija Radovi 18, he published an author’s book entitled Refleksi jata u bosanskom alhamijado pjesništvu. Ikavski poetski manir, and in 2019 also at the Language institute of the University of Sarajevo, in Edicija Radovi 24, published an author’s book entitled Predstandardni idiom bosanske alhamijado literature. So far, he has published over 70 papers, including original scientific articles, professional papers and reviews, and at the same time participated in over 30 scientific and professional conferences, round tables and symposia. He is the editor of more than 20 editions of the Language institute and a reviewer of a number of different scientific and professional works in the field of Bosnian language. He was the project manager for the filming of the popular TV shows “About Bosnian in Bosnian”. He has repeatedly promoted various issues in the field of Bosnistics. He is one of the expert associates in the Dictionary of Bosnian Language by Dževad Jahić. In 2012, he was selected as a Senior Associate at the Language institute in Sarajevo, and the same year at the Faculty of Philosophy in Sarajevo he defended his doctoral dissertation entitled Jezički izraz Hörmannove zbirke usmene epike u odnosu na novoštokavsku folklornu koine. On March 14, 2013, he was elected to the rank of Scientific Associate at the Language institute in Sarajevo, and on June 14, 2016, he was elected to the rank of Senior Research Associate. On May 8, 2013, he was elected Assistant Professor in the field of Linguistics at the Faculty of Humanities of the University “Džemal Bijedić” in Mostar, and from April 26, 2018 he was elected Associate Professor. Since 2013 he has been the editor-in-chief of journal Književni jezik (issues 24/1-2/2013, 25/1-2/2014, 26/1-2/2015, 27/1-2/2016, 28/2017, 29/2018, 30/2019) published by Language institute.
Alen Kalajdžija was Chairman of the Organizing Committee of the Second Symposium on Bosnian Language: Istraživanje, normiranje i učenje bosanskog jezika – dosadašnji rezultati, potrebe i perspektive (12–13. 3. 2015) (12-13 March 2015) and President of the Organizing Committee of the Scientific manifestation Alija Isaković i bosanski jezik organized by the Language Institute held on March 14, 2017 at the Bosniak Institute in Sarajevo. He is currently the Director of the Language Institute of the University of Sarajevo.