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

HOPKINS, Simon: The Language Studies of Ignaz Goldziher

SIMON HOPKINS oriental element in the vocabulary of European languages. His real fondness was for folk etymology, in which the popular imagination could be seen at work. This branch of etymology naturally appealed to him far more than formal derivations involving sound shifts, stress changes and other technicalities, and it is our good fortune that he treated the topic of folk etymology in Arabic at some length. Having already incorporated a good deal of relevant material in some early studies

14

2 he published a Hungarian article on the subject in 1881 (no. 88 [with synopsis] = Az arabok I 340), of which a revised German version appeared several years later as 'Arabische Beiträge zur Volksetymologie', ZJVP 18 (1888) 69-82 = GS II 326, an article which remains among the most fascinating contributions to Arabic philology that have ever been written. c) Mediaeval Judaeo-Arabic Goldziher was keenly interested and exceedingly well read in non-classical Arabic of all kinds and from all periods. His reviews of post-classical or Middle Arabic

144 works such as Derenbourg's edition of the adventures of Usäma b. Munqiő (no. 395), Seybold's Geschichte von Sul und Schumul (no. 482), Graf s Sprachgebrauch on Christian Arabic usage (no. 497, cols. 3181-3183) are rich in valuable observation of linguistic points. A theme which runs constant throughout his career is mediaeval Judaeo-Arabic, a field which he was uniquely equipped to serve and to which he contributed an opulent profusion of important studies. Goldziher felt a natural attraction to the meeting-ground of Judaism and Islam during a golden period of cultural and literary activity. His works in this area may not be on the physical scale of those which he devoted to purely Islamic themes, but they are of a richness and insight that have seldom been equalled. While some are of a general character, e.g. on comparative Islamic-Jewish superstition (no. 248) and philosophy (no. 338 = 377b), others, to be mentioned below, are of a distinctly linguistic and textual turn. His temperamental affinity for this area of study was stimulated and furthered by his early contact in Berlin in 1868 with the great Moritz Steinschneider (1816-1907),

14

4 unquestionably the leading practitioner in the field. It was Steinschneider who provided Goldziher with part of the material for his first major publication, his Leipzig Inauguraldissertation presented to H. L. Fleischer under the title Studien über Tanchűm Jerüschalmi (Leipzig 1870). These Studien were the first of many truly significant contributions to a field for which his enthusiasm never left him. 14

2 E. g. History of Grammar 55-56. 14

3 The term "mittelarabisch" was introduced by H. L. Fleischer in the 1850s. The expression has gained acceptance, but I do not recall Goldziher having used it in this form; the locution "im mittleren Schriftarabisch" occurs in his review of Snouck Hurgronje's Mekkanische Sprichwörter in ÖMfO 12 (1886), 209a. 14

4 Tagebuch 38. 112