The Language of Animals

Vuk Stefanović Karadžić (1787-1864) was a Serbian philologist, anthropologist and linguist. He was one of the most important reformers of the modern Serbian language. For his collection and preservation of Serbian folktales, the Encyclopædia Britannica labelled Karadžić «the father of Serbian folk-literature scholarship». He was also the author of the first Serbian dictionary in the new reformed language. In addition, he translated the New Testament into the reformed form of the Serbian spelling and language.

Literary historian Jovan Deretić summarized his work as «During his fifty years of tireless activity, he accomplished as much as an entire academy of sciences».

The Karadžić’s tale The Language of Animals (Немушти језик), which we present to our readers today in the English translation by John Theophilus Naaké, was included by Naaké in the collection Slavonic Fairy Tales, published in London in 1874.