Karadzic, Vuk Stefanovic

Karadžić, Vuk Stefanović (vk stĕfä`nôvich kä`räjĭch), 1787–1864, Serbian philologist and folklorist, of Moldavian descent. During his lifetime Karadžić published 10 volumes of Serbian folk poetry. He inaugurated language reforms and adopted the Serbian vernacular. His introduction of phonetic spelling and invention of new letters to complete the Cyrillic alphabet were major contributions to Serbian linguistics. Among his most important lexicographical works are a grammar of vernacular Serbian (1814) and a Serbian dictionary (1818). In 1847 he translated the New Testament into Serbian for the British and Foreign Bible Society.

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Karadzic, Vuk Stefanovic

(born Nov. 6, 1787, Tršic, Serbia, Ottoman Empire—died Feb. 6, 1864, Vienna) Serbian language scholar and folklorist. He was largely self-taught as a writer. After the failure of a Serb revolt against Turkish rule, he left for Vienna (1813), where he was introduced to formal scholarship by the Slavist Jernej Kopitar. In 1814 he published a grammar of Serbian (see Serbo-Croatian language) and in 1818 a dictionary; both promulgated a reformed Cyrillic alphabet and a new literary language based on colloquial Serbian rather than the prevailing literary language, which mixed archaic Serbian with Russian Church Slavic (see Old Church Slavonic language). After decades of resistance and polemicizing, the renascent Serbian state accepted his reforms in 1868.