**BERNOLÁK, Anton.** - Catholic priest and Slovak philologist, b. at Slanica on 4 Oct. 1762, d. at Nové Zámky on 15 Jan. 1813.
His works include: *Dissertatio philologico-critica de litteris Slavorum* (1787); *Grammatica slavica ad systema scholarum nationalium accomodata* (1790); *Lexicon slavicum-cumbohemico-latinico-germanico-hungaricum*, 6 vols., published posthumously in Budapest in 1825–27. He is to be regarded as the founder of the Slovak literary language, having adopted the western Slovak dialect spoken near Trnava, a choice followed by Catholics, while Protestants retained the use of Czech. To promote popular culture and the advancement of the language, he founded the *Utené Slovenské Tovaryšstvo* (Societas erudita slovacca), in which he gathered a large number of writers.
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