BERNOLÁK, ANTON. - Catholic priest and Slovak philologist, b. at Slanica on 4 Oct. 1762, d. at Nové Zámky on 15 Jan. 1813.
His works are: Dissertatio philologico-critica de litteris Slavorum (1787); Grammatica slavica ad systema scholarum nationalium accomodata (1790); Lexicon slavicumbohemico-lat, 6 vols., published after his death at Budapest in 1825–27. He must be regarded as the founder of the Slovak literary language, having adopted the western Slovak dialect spoken near Trnava; in this he was followed by Catholics, whereas Protestants retained the use of Czech. For the dissemination of culture among the people and for the advancement of the language, he founded the Učené Slovenské Tovaryžstvo (Societas erudita slovacca), in which he gathered a large number of men of letters.
Miroslav Štumpf