Á. Birtalan (ed.).: Bálint of Szentkatolna, Gábor: A Romanized Grammar of the East- and West-Mongolian Languages (Budapest Oriental Reprints, Ser. B 3.)

Introduction - Gábor Bálint of Szentkatolna's three unpublished manuscripts

INTRODUCTION GÁBOR BÁLINT OF SZENTKATOLNA'S THREE UNPUBLISHED MANUSCRIPTS

1 The aim of the present volume is to publish the facsimile of the manuscript of the comparative grammar of the Eastern and Western Mongolian languages and its supplementary chrestomathy compiled by Gábor Bálint of Szentkatolna (Hung. Szentkatolnai Bálint Gábor).

2 To reiterate the introductory words to the Grammar

3 it must be emphasised that this work is inseparable from two other manuscripts containing the results of Bálint's fieldwork, two bulky text collections recorded among the Kalmyks

4 and the Khalkha

5 Mongols during his study trip (1871-1874). My idea of publishing the three unedited manuscripts successively follows obviously their collector-author's conception and logic. Bálint collected materials systematically, paying attention to both the vernacular idioms and the folklore material. Two large manuscripts of transcribed Mongolian (Kalmyk and Khalkha) texts survive without their author's critical elaboration. It seems, however, certain that on the basis of his field experiences and the collected material he intended to create a comparative grammar of Eastern and Western Mongolian languages in English, which was a novel attempt to compile a Mongolian grammar based chiefly on the spoken languages. 19

t

h century scholars produced several descriptive grammars of Written Mongolian and Written Kalmyk languages before and after Bálint's effort. Undoubtedly, he drew on his predecessors' work (the main researchers cf. below) for his grammar as well. Nonetheless Bálint's Grammar and his text collection remain one of the first attempts focusing primarily on the spoken language. With the publishing of the Grammar and the two text collections a unique and large text corpus will be made available for scholars, and the Mongolian people will be enriched with exceptional relics of their spoken idioms. It cannot be emphasised enough that Bálint's texts offer one of the first large material of spoken Mongolian (Kalmyk and Khalkha). The publication of the Grammar will be follow ed by the release of the two text corpuses. But while the Grammar was written by Bálint in English, the two text collections still await translation and explanation in their cultural context. 1 Ligeti mentioned the Kalmyk and the Khalkha manuscripts in his article devoted to the Oriental studies and the collection in the Library of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences; cf Ligeti, L[ouis]: La Bibliothéque de l'Académie et les études orientates. Ed. Éva Apor. In: Jubilee Volume of the Oriental Collection 1951-1976. (Keleti Tanulmányok - Oriental Studies 2.) Budapest, Magyar Tudományos Akadémia Könyvtára 1978. pp. 7-21, on p. 19. 2 The precise titles and the shelf numbers of the manuscripts will be given below. 3 Briefly I refer to Bálint's manuscript as Grammar, the whole title cf. below. 4 The Kalmyks (Kalm. xal'mg) are the westernmost Mongolian speaking population; they live in their own republic (Xal'mg Tangyc) on the territory of the Russian Federation. Their language, Kalmyk (Kalm. xal'mg kein

) is spoken probably by 100-120 thousand people, although the majority of the speakers use it only limitedly, besides Russian which is also the official language in the Republic. About the Kalmyk language and culture cf. Birtalan, Ágnes - Rákos, Attila: Kalmükök - Egy európai mongol nép. (TEXTerebess 1.) Budapest, Terebess Kiadó 2002. [The Kalmyks - a European Mongolian nation]; Biasing, Uwe: Kalmuck. In: The Mongolic Languages. (Routledge Language Family Series) Ed. Juha Janhunen. London - New York, Routledge 2003. pp. 229-247. 5 Khalkha or Mongolian proper is the official language of the Republic of Mongolia. There are more than 2 .5 million speakers in Mongolia whose mother tongue is Khalkha. On the Khalkha language, cf. Svantesson, Jan-Olof: Khalkha. In: The Mongolic Languages. (Routledge Language Family Series) Ed. Juha Janhunen. London - New York, Routledge 2003. pp. 154-176. IX