Birtalan Ágnes: Kalmyk Folklore and Folk Culture in the Mid-19th Century: Philological Studies on the Basis of Gábor Bálint of Szentkatolna’s Kalmyk Texts.

KALMYK VERNACULAR AND WRITTEN LANGUAGE

SOME REMARKS ON THE STYLE The texts abound in the proper use of honorific forms, the elegance of the vocabulary and the precise adherence to the obligatory structure in all the items. All the letters - including the private and the official ones - are written in quite formal style, parallels of which can be found in the earlier collections as well. Bálint's informants - the students - mastered the epistolary language and acquired the etiquette of the 19

th century Kalmyk culture of epistolarity. Whether the person be a family member or an official of an administrative office, the respect and honour is the main lineament of the letters recorded by Bálint. The writs submitted to the administration are characterised by the accuracy of the description of the cases (a case of inheritance and a case of stealing). On the example of Bálint's records I have shown a possible approach to the study of the Kalmyk lettercorpuses in the brief analysis above. This short investigation model does not aim at a complete elaboration, even of Bálint's material consisting of seven items (four in the main text-body and three in the Addendum), but hopefully opens the way for further detailed research in the field of Kalmyk epistolography. 38