Hungarian Studies Newsletter, 1983 (11. évfolyam, 35-38. szám)
1983 / 37. szám
/V II / VII AMGRICAN HUNGARIAN FOUNDATION HUNGARIAN STUDIES NEWSLETTER BOOKS Banhidi, Zoltán, Zoltán Jókay, and Denes Szabó (In collaboration with Jenó Tarján) LEARN HUNGARIAN. Fifth edition. Budapest: Tankönyvkiadó, 1980. 531 pages, illus., tables. $4.90 cloth. The fifth revised edition of this popular introductory text, alike its predecessors, contains 30 lessons heavy on grammatical explanations and rather light on graded dialogues. The lessons are prefaced by a general introduction describing the Hungarian alphabet and rules of spelling and pronounciation. Each lesson is composed of a text introducing the new v/ords and grammatical elements, a short dialogue or rather questions and answers, translation exercises, grammatical rules, a list of new words, and accidentals. The vocabulary is down to earth adjusting to changes which occurred since the last edition. Drawings and photographs (but no cartoons) assist the student. An appendix contains a word list, definitions and indexes of grammatical terms, and a useful list of commonly used abbreviations. LP records - which we have not seen - to accompany the printed text are available from Hungaroton (Budapest, Vörösmarty tér 1, Hungary 1051). Barath, Tibor E. THE EARLY HUNGARIANS; In the Light of Recent Historical Research. Published by the author, P.O. Box 697, Station "B,” Montreal, Canada H3B 3K3,1983. 247 pages, diagrams, figures, tables, biblio. Canadian $16.00 (approx. US $13.00) paper. This handsome volume isanother testimony to the willingness of scholars to invest, in addition to time and effort, their own funds in publishing an opus which could not be published by commercial publishing houses. The prehistory of the Magyars is such a topic which evokes scholarly and emotional reactions in many of Hungarian background. It is a case in which a nation is looking for its roots. The author identifies the period between 3000 B.C. and 895 A.D. as pertinent, and outlines the controversy between "Orientalists” and “Finno- Ugrian theorists” as they obscure or enlighten the genesis of the Hungarian people. The Orientalists believe that the original home of the Hungarians had been the Near East, i.e., in Sumer and Babylon, while the Finno-Ugrian theorists believe that the Hungarians had been connected with the Finnish and Estonian peoples and with some scattered tribes of the Ural-Volga region. The author is satisfied with the evidence Orientalist scholars have unearthed in regard to the Near East background of the Hungarians, especially in regard to their Sumerian and Egyptian contacts. He believes that the few related tribes now scattered in Eastern Europe and Sibera, the Caucasian Hungarians, the Volga Hungarians, the Turanian Hungarians, and the Moldva (csa'ngó) Hungarians broke away from the main body at various periods of NO. 37, AUTUMN 1983, HUNGARIAN STUDIES NEWSLETTER prehistory, others had been destroyed by the Mongol invaders of the 13th century. The author is a historian and former prof, of the University of KolozsvaV, and author of several historical volumes. Copper, John F. and Daniel S. Papp eds., COMMUNIST NATIONS’ MILITARY ASSISTANCE. Westview Press, 5500 Central Avenue, Boulder, CO 80301,1983.201 pages, tables. $20.00 cloth. "Since World War II more casualties have resulted from civil wars than from wars between or among nations.. .most have been fought with outside help in form of arms, equipment, and training.” The more active involvement of communist countries in military aid beginning with the late 1960s makes it necessary to understand the extent, character, and importance of this factor in internationa elations. The nine essays included in this volume analyze the military aid capabilities of communist donor countries, the motivations for offering such aid, and the policies that govern arms assistance. The volume draws comparison between communist and US efforts and discusses successes and failures of various military aid programs. Hungary seems to be a lesser partner in the effort, keeping a low profile in the race. Nevertheless, it received 24 references in the volume, and a statement regarding its growing contribution as significant. Though Hungary has by far the smallest military establishment and defense expenditure among Warsaw Pact nations, its export of military aid to Third World nations has grown from virtually none in 1969 to $70 million in 1978. Copper is assoc, prof., Dept, of International Studies, Southwestern U., and Papp is assoc, prof, of international affairsand director, School of Social Sciences, Georgia Inst, of Technology. Kiefer, Ferenc ed , HUNGARIAN LINGUISTICS. John Benjamins North America, One Buttonwood Square, 202, Philadelphia, PA 19130, 1982. Volume 4 in the Linguistic and Literary Studies in Eastern Europe series. 599 pages, tables, charts, diagrams. $70.00 cloth. This impressive anthology of 17 essays on general linguistics written by Hungarian scholars, reflects the thoughts and efforts of a new generation of linguists. The editor, after surveying the most salient features of Hungarian linguistic development, observes that the essays presented in the volume are descriptive and theoretical in nature, i.e., noneofthem represents the traditional Hungarian orientation in linguistics. Neither are works of the field of applied and computational linguistics included. The topics embrace the philosophy of language, psycholinguistics, generative syntax, historical linguistics, history of linguistics, history of Hungarian linguistics, language typology, generative phonology, Montague grammar, and a group of theoretically (Continued on Page 2)
