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 Quite apart from his practical command of classical and colloquial Arabic, Goldziher had many contacts in the East and had his scholarly predilections been different he might have done for Arabic dialectology what he did so splendidly for the study of Islam, viz. bring a new branch of scholarship into being and set it on a firm foundation. Dialectology was a field he considered important and he continued to keep abreast of what was being done by others, as he himself testifies for the 1870s and 1880s

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1 and as shown by a Hungarian survey article published in 1895, i.e. well into the middle of his career: 'Az arab nyelvjárások legújabb irodalma' [The latest literature on Arabic dialects], Nyelvtudományi Közlemények 25 (1895), 90-96 = Az arabok II 682. In 1915 he officially welcomed to membership of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences the important Arabic dialectologist H. Stumme,

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2 in whose election Goldziher himself had been instrumental.

1

9' As it was, however, his ventures into the dialectological domain were not many. The material for hi; only independent article devoted to colloquial Arabic, 'Jugendund Strassenpoesie in Kairo', ZDMG 33 (1879), 608-630 = GS II 48, goes back to his stay in Egypt in 1873-4 and the publication forms a point of transition from the first to the second period of his career. Apart from this, his contributions to the subject were presented in generally brief reviews of publications by other scholars: n

o- 397 (Snouck Hurgronje's Mekkanische Sprichwörter

), no. 407 (Seidel's Praktisches Handbuch

), no. 466 (Dalman's Palästinischer Diwan), no. 560 (Cohen's vocalist. He enjoyed musical entertainment in Belgium in 1892 (Tagebuch 144, 148) and two years later went to hear the famous organ of Fribourg (ibid. 185). In MGWJ 22 (1873), 174-180 he published the Judaeo-Arabic original of a responsum of Maimonides on music [= ed. J. Blau, no. 224], but this was for literary rather than musical reasons. [That music may have played a role in the Goldziher family is indicated by the fact that the elder son Miksa (called Misi in the family circle) was an outstanding violinist and pianist who regularly played duets with Goldziher's friend Jenő Péterfy (see P. I. Zimándi, Péterfy' Jenő élete és kora, Budapest 1972, 347, 349, 387, 404). There are also reports on the Goldzihers' theatre visits. I. O.]. 19

1 Tagebuch 92. This was despite the paucity of bibliographical material on Arabic dialects available in Budapest; Goldziher did not have access even to Bocthor's dictionary (

Hanisch, Briefwechsel 271). 19

2 Akadémiai Értesítő 26 (1915), 684-685. 19

3 Magyar Tudományos Akadémia. Tagajánlások 1915, 1-2. Stumme, incidentally, delivered his inaugural address 'A berber népekről' [On the Berber peoples] to the Academy in Hungarian; see Tagebuch 287; Hurgronje to Goldziher in van Koningsveld, Letters 462. [Goldziher pays tribute to Stumme's mastery of Hungarian in an unpublished letter to Nöldeke dated 21.9.1916: "Nicht nur ich bedauere die Stellung, in die Sie zur ZDMG geraten sind. Ich habe Stumme dafür interpelliert; er verwahrt sich gegen eine verletzende Absicht (schon gegenüber seinem Lehrer) und deutet das Geschehene als bloss redaktionelles Verfahren. Dies schreibt er mir in gutem Ungarisch, einer schweren Sprache, die er in einer für den Ausländer überraschenden Vollkommenheit handhabt". I. O.]. 123