Wojtilla Gyula: A List of Words Sanskrit and Hungarian by Alexander Csoma de Kőrös.

II. Csoma and Sanskrit Studies

/. The antecendents Csorna's work in Sanskrit Indo-Aryan vernaculars and comparative philology is inseparable from the standard of research in Calcutta where he lived for many years, in Europe which gave him the first impetus and which stimulated scholarity activity throughout the world and in Hungary from where he made his way to Asia. Calcutta The year 1786 is generally regarded as the birthdate of comparative philology. In a speech delivered in Calcutta Sir William Jones expounded the idea of the special relation between Sanskrit and some European languages. Speaking of Sanskrit, as he put it: "... more perfect than the Greek, more copious than the Latin, and more exquisitely refined than either; yet bearing to both of them a stronger affinity, both in the roots of verbs, and in the forms of grammar, that could possibly have been produced by accident; so strong, indeed, that no philologer could examine them at all three without believing them to have sprung from some common source, which perhaps no longer exists."

2 Jones' statement had tremendous consequences in linguistics. Serious activity began to explore Sanskrit and to teach it together with modern Indo-Aryan vernaculars at the College of Fort William in Calcutta. Among the scholars working there we find the European pioneers of Sanskrit and Into-Arvan studies such as H.T. Colebrooke and William Carey. Colebrooke, a devoted student of Greek and Latin and Hindu law was appointed professor of Sanskrit in May 1801. Carey, a former member of the Baptist Mission in Serampore taught Sanskrit, Bengali and Marathi. Beside them there was Mrityunjay Vidyalamkar the finest Sanskrit scholar of his age in the service of the College.

b The work of Europeans was aided by munshis, i.e. scribes who had a good command of Sanskrit and the respective languages. Munshis copied manuscripts, prepared them for print and conducted courses in colloquial Bengali etc. For effective teaching and research the institution published grammars and dictionnaries

, too. Their efforts assumed visible shape in text-books of Marathi, Panjabi, Telugu and Kannada by Carey, vocabulary of Oriya and Marathi prepared by Mohan Prasad Thakur and Carey.

7 John Gilchrist authored the A Dictionar

y, English and Hindoostane

e (1986-90). He believed in some kind of universal grammar underlying all the languages of the world. He emphasized the importance of the theoretical aspects