Nyelvtudományi Közlemények 110. kötet (2014)
Tanulmányok - Honti László: Észrevételek az uráli számnevekről (Notes on the Urálié numerals) 31
58 HoNTi László neolithic, stage of civilisation do use certain words denoting quantities. In this respect, as we shall see, some etymological relationship might, perhaps, be found to exist between the Fenno-Ugric and the Samoyedic languages. Naturally, these cannot but be some faint traces, since it is conditions that prevailed many thousand years ago that are here involved. One must bear in mind, therefore, that these traces are of only a hypothetical value. [Bekezdés] 7. Now, on the basis of the foregoing, the next question we should ask ourselves may be formulated as follows: What quantity-denoting words may be assumed as having existed at the primitive, neolithic, stage of civilisation of the Uralic period at all? [Bekezdés] It has been pointed-out above that the possibility of abstract numerals, in the sense as they are interpreted today, having existed in that period must be ruled out altogether. Higher forms of numerals and numeral systems were created as the necessity of counting things arose. It would be difficult to imagine that the primitive Uralic man should have been aware of any particular need of counting. If he was obliged to count objects, he would in all likelihood use a different method of counting from what we have. [Bekezdés] If we are to form some idea of the method of counting used by the primitive man of the Uralic period, we have to turn to analogies that are most likely to bear comparison with that method. The numerals of the so-called primitive languages would appear to furnish a suitable means for this purpose. According to the almost unanimous testimony of these numerals, at the time when the concept of numbers begins to emerge, the fingers (and the toes), other parts of the human body, as well as gestures associated with the counting operation, are of primary importance” (Kovács 1960: 122-123; kiemelve az eredetiben, H. L.). (2) „То summarize what has been, expounded so far: (i) Attempts made over the last one hundred years or so at comparing the Fenno-Ugric with the Samoyedic numerals have yielded nothing but the negative result that no definite relationship can be ascertained between the numerals of the two families of languages; the existence, therefore, of »common Uralic numerals« must be ruled out. (ii) The respective numerals of the Fenno-Ugric and the Samoyedic languages have sprung from separate beginnings, have been developed in ways totally unconnected with each other, and constitute two systems entirely independent from each other, (iii) It would be unhistorical to assume the existence in the primitive Uralic period of abstract numerals; only the most primitive forms of counting can at best be assumed as having existed in the Uralic period, parts of the human body supplied the basis of counting in the same way as they are used in other societies at an equally primitive stage of civilisation” (Kovács 1960: 126-127). „The stage of civilisation at which the Uralic primitive people lived could be, at best, neolithic. It would be unhistorical to assume abstract numerals, or even numeral systems, as
