Grammatical proof of the affinity of the Hungarian language with languages of Fennic origin

388 Pages·1983·15.3 MB·English

by  Samuel Gyarmathi

AFFINITY OF THE HUNGARIAN LANGUAGE
AMSTERDAM STUDIES IN THE THEORY AND
HISTORY OF LINGUISTIC SCIENCE
General Editor
E.F. KONRAD KOERNER
(University of Ottawa)
Series I - AMSTERDAM CLASSICS IN LINGUISTICS, 1800-1925
Advisory Editorial Board
Johannes Bechert (Bremen); Allan R. Bomhard (Boston)
Dell Hymes (Philadelphia); Kurt Jankowsky (Washington, D.C.)
Winfred P. Lehmann (Austin, Tex.); J. Peter Maher (Chicago)
Terence H. Wilbur (Los Angeles)
Volume 15
Samuel Gyarmathi
Grammatical Proof of the Affinity of the Hungarian Language
with Languages of Fennic Origin
SÁMUEL GYARMATHI
GRAMMATICAL PROOF OF THE
AFFINITY OF THE HUNGARIAN LANGUAGE
WITH LANGUAGES OF FENNIC ORIGIN
Translated, annotated, and introduced by
VICTOR E. HANZELI
University of Washington
Seattle, Washington
JOHN BENJAMINS PUBLISHING COMPANY
AMSTERDAM/PHILADELPHIA
1983
TRANSYLVANIAE LUMINIBUS
© Copyright 1983 - John Benjamins B.V.
ISSN 0304 0712 / ISBN 90 272 0976 6
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by print, photoprint,
microfilm or any other means, without written permission from the publisher.
CONTENTS
Gyarmathi's Portrait vi
Translator's Preface vii
Gyarmathi and his AFFINITAS xi
Dedication to Paul I x1v
Author's Preface xlix
Table of Contents lvii
Comparative Orthography of Hungarian and Russian . . lix
Part One: Lapp and Finnish 1
Part Two: Estonian 9 7
Part Three: Seven Fennic Languages 139
Appendix I: Comparative Tatar-Hungarian Vocabulary . 175
Appendix II: Excerpts from the Petersburg Vocabu­
lary; Slavic-Hungarian Comparative Vocabularies . 19 3
Appendix III: Schlozer's Letter 307
Notes 311
References 317
Index Nominum 325
v
Sámuel Gyarmathi (1751-1830)
TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE
We do not have to share completely the scepticism of
Winfred P. Lehmann who recently opined that "today one can
hardly expect general linguists to make out the Greek let­
ters, let alone interpret a Greek or Latin passage" (Leh­
mann 1979:407), in order to appreciate the need for a
translation, in a widely accessible modern language, of an
undisputed classic in comparative linguistics. Scimuel
Gyarmathi's Affinitas linguae hungaricae cum Unguis fenni-
cae oviginis gvammatioe demonstrata (Gottingen 1799) was
received as a distinguished work of scholarship in its own
days, and its historical importance has been fully recog­
nized ever since. In our times, Paul Ariste launched the
first issue of the journal Sovetskoe finno-ugrovedenie by
evoking Gyarmathi's name as that of the author of the
"first systematic survey of the common features in the
vocabulary and the grammatical structure of the Fenno-Ugric
languages" whose Affinitas laid "the foundation of the com­
parative historical investigation" of that language family
(Ariste 1965:2). The present work, the first in a series
of planned studies devoted to the works of Scimuel Gyarmathi,
should therefore meet a genuine need.
This translation is based on the text of Affinitas as
reprinted phbtolithographically from a 1799 original, in
Indiana University's Uralic and Altaic Series, Vol. 9 5
(Bloomington, Ind. 1968). The original was poorly printed
and it did not improve in the process of reproduction: hand­
written corrections on the final plates include a certain
number of errors (e.g., pp. 36, 137). Hard-to-read pas­
sages have therefore been collated for this translation
with microfilms of other copies of Affinitas, specifically
those held in the libraries of Harvard University, the
lycée in Zalǎu (Hung. Zilah; Gyarmathi's own copy), and
Babes-B6lyai University in Cluj-Napoca (Kolozsvár), both in
Romania. The vertical digraphs, the small superscript e
and o, were the most difficult to distinguish. In the
present work, the original's superscript e is reproduced as
the second member of a linear digraph, namely, œ, œ; and
the original's "long s" as a regular s. The German β
appears as sz in Hungarian contexts, and as ss in others.
VII
viii VICTOR E. HANZELI
The entire Latin text including the Latin glosses of
the original are translated here into English, with the
exception of zoological and botanical terms and a few
passages where Gyarmathi makes specific reference to Latin
grammar. The translation of the glosses will be useful to
those who read this volume for the purpose of studying
Gyarmathi's comparative methodology. Finno-Ugrists in­
terested in specific lexical items will no doubt refer to
the Latin glosses in the original, still available in the
19 68 Indiana University reprint. (Please note that the
columnar listings of these glosses here translated into
English are headed by the word "Latin"; labelling them
"English" would have done violence to the original text.)
My transliterations from the Cyrillic in names and
titles follow here the style of the Times Atlas of the
World, least burdened with diacritics and as such closest
to Gyarmathi's own style; his own transliterations are
reproduced without change. Transylvanian place names are
in contemporary Romanian, with the 18th-century (and mod­
ern) Hungarian equivalents in parentheses.
Throughout the work, page numbers referring to Affini-
tas are enclosed in square brackets; page numbers in
parentheses refer to this volume.
The present translation includes two additions to the
text of Affinitas as reprinted in the Indiana University
series: Appendix III, the text of a letter to Gyarmathi by
A. L. von Schlozer which was included only in some of the
copies of Affinitas printed in 1799; and a number of mar­
ginal notes in Gyarmathi's own hand which I have found in
his Eandexemplar of the work, now held in the Library of
the lycée of Zalǎu. Some of these marginalia are trivial,
minor corrections and rearrangements of existing material;
those I have not attempted to reproduce here. (See p. xl,
n. 68; p. 312, n. 1.)
Gyarmathi's footnotes and my own notes pertaining to
his text are combined at the end of this volume, with the
latter enclosed in square brackets. Dates of birth and
death of persons who lived in the 18th century or earlier
are given in the References (317-24), or in the absence
of a bibliographical entry, in the Notes (311-6).
Completing my task would have been impossible without
the help and cooperation of many a fellow scholar and pro­
fessional—the librarians of the Georgia Augusta's magni­
ficent collection, now the Niedersachsische Staats- und
Universitatsbibliothek, Gottingen, to whom I can only re­
peat Gyarmathi's compliments: "hujus ergo custodibus vigi-
lantissimis publica referenda est gratia" [xx]; the eminent
historian Rector Stefan Pascu of Babes-B61yai University
TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE ix
who opened his library and research facilities for me;
Professor E. F. K. Koerner, Editor of this Series, whose
advice improved much the clarity and form of my transla­
tion; and Ms. Lindsay Michimoto whose rare skills were a
true match to the difficulty of laying out and typing the
final version of a complex manuscript.
Further grateful acknowledgement is due to the gener­
ous support of the Graduate Research Fund of the Univer­
sity of Washington and to the Penrose Fund of the American
Philosophical Society.
Seattle, Washington V. E. K.
September 19 81