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 In the light of the evident antiquity of the "vernacular", Goldziher pointed out (p. 18) that the essence of the linguistic dichotomy so characteristic of Arabic lies more in the distinction between literary ( irodalmi) Schriftarabisch : colloquial (vulgaris) than in ancient ( ó ) Altarabisch : modern (új). But Goldziher is fully aware that such a binary division alone is not sufficient to account for a rather complicated situation. Within the vernacular itself (which may be written as well as spoken) there are higher registers approaching the classical language and lower registers tending towards raw colloquial speech (legvulgarisabb vulgar nyelv),."for the colloquial has its grades (J'okozat), too" (p. 28). Although the hundred years and more which have elapsed since the publication of Goldziher's book have seen a large increment of information on these subjects, the problem of suitable terminology has not yet been solved and the age of the Neo-Arabic "vernacular" type is under discussion to this day. There is a curious item in Goldziher's chapter 2 which merits discussion. At the very beginning of the book (p. 3) the author expresses surprise that the manifestly manufactured tradition ascribing the beginning of Arabic grammar to the caliph 'Ali should find any acceptance among critical scholars "in our sceptical era". " 7 It is, therefore, at first glance curious to find Goldziher himself (pp. 20-21) lending unreserved credence to the vague, uncritical and unsubstantiated information supplied by W. G. Palgrave "to the astonishment of the scholarly world" on the continued existence in Arabia of fully inflected spoken classical Arabic. In Palgrave's Narrative of a Year's Journey through Central and Eastern Arabia (1862-63), 2 vols. (London - Cambridge 1865) we read of a spoken idiom in the Hä'il area of central Nejd which is "with very slight exceptions, entirely unvitiated, and follows in general the minute rules and exigencies of what is sometimes, though very incorrectly, called the grammatical dialect " (I 25). In this region, avers Palgrave, "the smallest and raggedest child that toddles about the street lisps in the correctest book-Arabic (to use an inexact denomination) that ever De Sacy studied or Sibawee'yah professed", for here "Arabic at the present day is spoken precisely as it was in the age of Mahomet" (p. 311). In Riyäd Palgrave found the local dialect "in the main the pure and unchanged dialect of the Coran, no less living and familiar to all now than in the seventh century" (p. 463). Goldziher adduced some of Palgrave's affirmations, "the authenticty of which nobody has the right to doubt" (p. 21), as part of an argument against the view of i'räblosen Sprechens, so wie der übrigen Erscheinungen des Volksarabischen chronologisch fixirt werden könnte? Jedenfalls wird es eine Periode gegeben haben, in welcher gebildete Leute noch den vollen altgrammat. Sprachausdruck gebrauchten, das gemeine Volk aber vulgär redete, so dass beide Sprachstufen neben einander lebten ." The Abhandlung referred to was published in ZA 12 (1897), 171 ff. and subsequently became the first chapter of Nöldeke's Beiträge zur semitischen Sprachwissenschaft. 1. O.]. 22 7 Goldziher had already referred to this matter in a short note in ZDMG 29 (1875), 320-321 = GS I 364. 133
