Anton Bernolák

Anton Bernolák ( born October 1, 1762 at Slanica Námestovo; † January 15, 1813 in Nové Zámky ) was a Slovak priest and philologist. He worked as one of the first with the grammar of the Slovak language.

Life

He was born as the child of country gentlemen and attended 1774-1778 high school in Ružomberok. He then studied rhetoric, philosophy and poetics in Bratislava and Trnava and theology in Vienna. After his studies he occupied from 1778 to 1791 for the position of chaplain in Lanschütz. He then spent six years as secretary of the archbishop's Vicariate in Trnava. Since May 1797 to his death, he led the parish in Nové Zámky and became the local deanery before. At the same time he managed the local school.

In 1792 he founded with Juraj Fándly the Slovenské učené tovaryšstvo in Trnava and became its chairman. The Tovaryšstvo had offices in Slovakia and was publisher of books in the so for the first time codified the Slovak language. The most important, who wrote in this new form of language, Juraj Fándly was.

Person

His prodigious talent was already evident at the General Seminary in Bratislava, as he was enthusiastic about the cultural reforms of the Empress Maria Theresa and Joseph II. He led the club to take care of the Slovak language ( Spoločnosť na pestovanie Slovenského jazyka ) and propagated the national rebirth of the Slovaks. To realize his ideas and goals he had specialist knowledge. He spoke several languages ​​- both classic and modern - and had a broad general knowledge, from economics, medicine, aesthetics, music to politics. Its main activity was devoted to the language. It was clear that a people can not develop long-term self-employed, if it can not communicate with a living language.

In the Slovak history, he eventually enrolled as first codified the Slovak font. Although his written language was not used in the entire field, so he sat still sign for a nationally liberating people. The foundation stone he laid already in a study by the proposal to prepare a draft for grammatical editing of the Slovak language. His design was built in 1787 by the written in Latin script Philological and critical elaboration of the Slavic letters ( Filologicko - kritické rozpravě o slovanských písmenech ) realized that he co-authored with other members of the association. Three years later he published his grammar book.

Works

The majority of his work is devoted to linguistics. His work is considered to be a first, albeit unsuccessful attempt at codification of the Slovak language. Successful Protestant clergymen Ľudovít Štúr was shortly thereafter.

Grammatical works

• Dissertatio critica de - Literis Slavorum (Bratislava 1787)
• Gramatica Slavica (Bratislava 1790), it is in Topoľčiany castle kept.
• Etymológia vocum slavicarum ( Trnava 1791)

Dictionaries

• Slowár Slowenskí, Česko - Latinsko - Engelsk- Uherskí, seu Lexicon Slavicum Latino Germanico - Ungaricum auctore Antonio Bernolák [ Slovak Czech- Latin- German-Hungarian dictionary, seu ... ] I-VI, oven (now Budapest), 1825-27 ( published until after his death by Juraj Palkovič )