What's in a Prague street name

Bernolákova was built in 1969.

Anton Bernolák was born in Slanica, a now-extinct village in the Orava region of Slovakia, in 1762. He studied theology in Vienna and Bratislava, where he studied at the general seminary.

While at the seminary, he became a big supporter of the Enlightenment reforms of Maria Theresa and Joseph II, and also became a big promoter of the idea of a Slovak nation.

He set about codifying the Slovak language, based on the dialect of the Trnava region. In 1787, this led him to publish Linguae Slavonicae… compendiosa simul et facilis Orthographia, the first book of its kind. His codification was based on the principle that words should be written as they are pronounced.

In 1790, this was followed by Gramatica Slavica, the first published grammar of the Slovak language.

As well as by Etymologia vocum Slavicarum sistens modum multiplicandi vocabula per derivationem et compositionem (1791).

As well as his linguistic work, Bernolák spent six years working as secretary of the archbishop’s vicariate in Trnava, and, from 1797, was a parish priest in Nové Zámky.

At the time of his death in 1813, Bernolák was working on a six-volume Slovak-Czech-Latin-German-Hungarian dictionary, which was ultimately published in Buda about twelve years after his death.

The second codification of the Slovak language would come in the 1840s, courtesy of Ľudovít Štúr, who the local main road – also built in 1969 – is named after: https://whatsinapraguestreetname.com/2026/03/05/prague-4-day-325-sturova/.