Vuk Karadžić

Vuk Karadžić (1787–1864) was a Serbian philologist and language reformer who shaped modern written Serbian and documented oral folk literature.

Serbian language: A South Slavic language spoken chiefly in Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, and neighboring regions. Karadžić’s reforms established the foundations of its modern standard.
Štokavian dialect: A South Slavic dialect group that forms the basis of standard Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian, and Montenegrin. Karadžić based his literary standard on Štokavian speech.
Serbian Dictionary (1818): Vuk Karadžić’s 1818 dictionary, a landmark description of Serbian vocabulary and usage. It presented his reformed alphabet alongside vernacular words and definitions.
Jernej Kopitar: A Slovene linguist and censor who supported Karadžić’s language reform and helped him publish his work. Kopitar encouraged his scholarship and assisted its publication in Vienna.
First Serbian Uprising: An uprising against Ottoman rule in Serbia that began in 1804 and ended in 1813. Karadžić served the uprising and its aftermath before devoting himself to scholarship.
Serbian Cyrillic alphabet: The Cyrillic alphabet used to write Serbian, with a one-to-one correspondence between letters and phonemes. Karadžić helped establish its modern form and phonemic spelling.
Phonemic orthography: A writing system in which spellings closely represent the sounds of spoken language. His spelling reforms applied the principle that each sound should have a distinct letter.
Serbian Folk Songs: Collections of Serbian oral poetry published by Vuk Karadžić from the early nineteenth century onward. These volumes brought songs gathered from performers into print and wider circulation.
Dositej Obradović: An eighteenth-century Serbian writer and educator who promoted Enlightenment ideas and wrote in a mixed literary language. His literary language differed from the vernacular standard Karadžić advocated.
Second Serbian Uprising: A Serbian revolt against Ottoman rule in 1815 that led to greater autonomy. Its political settlement formed part of the setting for his later reform work.

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