É. Apor , I. Ormos (ed.): Goldziher Memorial Conference, June 21–22, 2000, Budapest.

HOPKINS, Simon: The Language Studies of Ignaz Goldziher

THE LANGUAGE STUDIES OF IGNAZ GOLDZIHER reviews, mostly rather brief, one stands conspicuously out: his review of A. Berliner, Beiträge zur hebräischen Grammatik im Talmud und Midrasch (Berlin 1879) in ZDMG 34 (1880), 375-384. Goldziher had lodged in Berliner's house as a student in Berlin some dozen years previously

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1 and he felt a particular affinity both to the author and his subject."

2 As we have seen, from his youth Goldziher had been thoroughly schooled in the traditional rabbinic sources and had an avowed fondness for Talmudic philology. Berliner's booklet provided him with an opportunity to tarry a while in a field which he loved. Goldziher clearly relished the occasion, and displayed his profound Talmudic learning to full advantage.

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3 His great expertise in this branch of study is also evident from his marginalia to Levy's Wörterbuch (above n. 86), which probably date from about the same time. Before returning in §6 to Goldziher's early works on Arabic from the 1870s, it is worthwhile to look at the topics in the field of Arabic language which interested him in the second and third periods of his career. Beside the abiding monuments of Islamic scholarship mentioned earlier, Goldziher produced a constant stream of articles and reviews, great and small, on all manner of Arabic subjects. In accordance with their author's characteristic scholarly preferences these lesser contributions are of course of cultural rather than grammatical content; his aim was usually to elucidate the conceptual, not the syntactical shape of Arabic phraseology and idiom. Nevertheless, many of these smaller pieces are of very great linguistic interest and deserve to be read more widely than perhaps they are. In the following roughly classified summary, which is suggestive rather than exhaustive, the numeration is that of of Heller's Bibliographie (nos. 1-592), continued by Scheiber (nos. 593-807), with references, where applicable, to the Gesammelte Schriften reprinted by DeSomogyi and to Onnos's collection of Hungarian writings under the title Az arabok és az iszlám. a) Formulae, phraseology and idiom In some of the more conventional areas of indigenous Arabic philological literature, such as metrics, versified grammar and lexicography, Goldziher contented himself with a few reviews of other people's work (e.g. nos. 447, 457, 480, 523, Joseph Somogyi, Budapest 1948, 426 (no. 656). I. O.]. Goldziher in his youth contributed a couple of short items to the Hebrew press (Heller nos. 604, 605 from 1869). He did not use Hebrew as a vehicle for his scholarly work, but restricted it to private correspondence with Jewish scholars, e.g. S. Poznatiski. For Goldziher's spoken Hebrew see below n. 170. 13

1 Tagebuch 38-39. 13

2 Goldziher later contributed a substantial article dealing with Islamic-Jewish superstition on the subject of memory to the Festschrift zum siebzigsten Geburtstage A. Berliner's, ed. A. Freimann & M. Hildesheimer, Frankfurt a. M. 1903, 131-155. 13

3 Unfortunately, neither this review nor Goldziher's contribution to the Berliner Festschrift is reprinted in GS. 109