The paper provides an overview of the presence of language teaching and language contents in primary school curricula in the XIX and the first decades of the XX century in Montenegro, as well as recommended ways of teaching, i.e. the dominant educational paradigm in language teaching. The focus of the research were the curricula from 1870. and 1908, since they were innovative in the said times and implied a certain change and progress. The research combines historical and descriptive methods and uses the technique of studying and analyzing primary written and printed pedagogical documents. Primary schools in the mentioned period refer to the first three or four grades and they functioned in distinct circumstances – the continuity of education was interrupted due to the lack of teaching staff and wars. The formation of educational institutions and the adoption of laws took place at the same time as the establishment of schools, and thus the first curricula were written by teachers. Grammar curricula contents and the spelling (which was not explicitly stated) in the curricula of 1870 were mostly acceptable and reachable for the students. In the curricula of 1908, they were more extensive and less appropriate for the age of the students. The methodical instruction given in the introduction to this curriculum offered an approach that could make the teaching of all subjects, including the language teaching, efficient. It is evident that the circumstances in which these curricula were created influenced greatly their content and especially their scope.