He was born in Ivánc, where his father was a teacher and clerk. He attended high school in Szombathely and Sopron, then studied at the Royal Academy of Philosophy in Bratislava. In 1790 he was ordained a priest. From 1791 to 1792 he served as a chaplain in Ivánc, at which time he met József Sigray. His most significant research was in Hungarian linguistics. He taught for twenty years (1793-1812) at Szombathely.
In 1831 he was elected a member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences.
His main work is a dictionary of root words of the Hungarian language containing nearly 80 thousand entries (1831). Its significance is that it took into account the vernacular, phrases, and local names.