Vuk Stefanović Karadžić was a Serbian writer, philologist, linguist, reformer of the Serbian language and one of the most important figures in the history of Serbia, the creator of the first dictionary of the Serbian language is the most important figure in Serbian literature of the first half of the 19th century.
His greatest contributions are the writing of folk literature, which until then was exclusively transmitted orally, and the reformation of the Serbian language, which created one of the simplest and most logical spelling systems.
Vuk was born on November 6, 1787, in the village of Tršić, in Serbia, which then belonged to the Ottoman Empire. His parents, Stefan and Jegda, were farmers and before Vuk they gave birth to five children who, unfortunately, all died very young. When they had their sixth child, they named him Vuk, after a strong wild animal, to protect him from witches and death.
Vuk learned to read and write from his cousin Jevta Savić Čotrić, at that time the only literate man in the area. After that, he continued his education in Loznica, but due to illness he had to leave school. His parents sent him to the Tronoša monastery near Šabac to continue his education, but when Stefan saw that Vuk kept more cattle than he was educating, he decided to return him home. In addition to problems with schooling, as a young man he also faces serious health problems. Due to gout, he was sent to Pest for treatment in 1810, but after unsuccessful treatment he returned to Serbia.
The Turks conquered Serbia again in 1813, and then Vuk went to Vienna to study. There he learned German and Latin and enjoyed Western culture. Shortly after his arrival, he attracted the attention of Jernej Kopitar, an Austrian critic who read Vuk's article written in the popular Serbian language. Vuk published his first collection of folk songs in 1814 - "Mala prostonarodna slaveno-serbska pjesnarica" and a grammar "Pismenica serbskoga jezika", in order to help readers better understand his book. Encouraged by the success of these two books, Karadzic published "Narodna srbska pjesnarica" next year.
In 1818, he published the first edition of the "Serbian Dictionary", and it consisted of a total of 26,270 words taken from the speeches of the people in Srem, Vojvodina and Serbia. In the same year, 1818, Vuk published an extended edition of grammar. In the new grammar, he used Adelung's principle, ie ... "Write as you speak, and read as it is written". which made spelling much easier. Vuk believed that each voice must have only one letter, which greatly simplified grammar and spelling. From the previous alphabet, he removed all unnecessary characters that were written but not pronounced. In contrast, Vuk created new characters by merging individual letters with a thin semi-vowel.
Vuk Karadžić died in Vienna in 1864 with a book of folk songs in his hands, which, as he pointed out, he had been doing as his "favorite job" all his life. His language was not officially adopted as a literary language until 1868, four years after Vuk's death.
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