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

Introduction - The Grammar

A. F. Schiefner, who edited and published the philological heritage of M. A. Castrén, among others the Buryat material, he must have been acquainted with Castrén's results, too.

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1 Castrén's Buryat grammar is based on his field material and hence it is the first grammar of a spoken Mongolian language. It is evident that Bálint's Buryat and East- and West-Mongolian comparative grammars include achievements of contemporary philology, yet he did not mention all his predecessors and contemporaries. He referred, however, to the works of other leading scholars in his Report and in the Preface of the Grammar

, first of all the Kalmyk Grammar written by Bobrovnikov. He quotes Bernhard Jülg's (1825-1886) article summarising the achievements of Mongolian studies of those times (until 1882) in the Preface, which permits the assumption that he was familiar with other grammars as well (Zwick, Popov, Schmidt, Kovalevskij, cf. the References). "As the sources for the study of Mongolian language are in detail laid out in the excellent article «On the present state of Mongolian Researches» by Prof. B. Jiilg published in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society (New Series Vol. XIV Part I January 1882. London, Trübner et C

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e; I refer the kind reader thereto."

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2 Though he refers to Jülg and Bobrovnikov, he emphasises that his Grammar is different from the others, since it is based on his own field work: "I only mention, that there is in the present grammar with respect to the Mongolian language hardly anything. I had not heard from the Mongolians themselves; and the Chrestomathy consisting in a selection from my double collection contains again merely original matters."

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3 Unlike the grammars written by Bálint's contemporaries in Russian or in German, he wrote his work in English.

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4 THE CONTENT AND THE STRUCTURE OF THE GRAMMAR Bálint introduced his Grammar with a long and informative preface (Bálint: pp. I—XIII, in the present book: pp. 2-14), where he propounded his aims, working method, a brief summary of his field work, discussed the difference between the written language and the spoken tongue, included the short contents of some specimens of the Chrestomathies and did not spare his salty remarks from some of the leading researchers of the epoch who criticised his comparative linguistic proposals.

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2 In the preface he clearly set out his endeavour to w rite a grammar of spoken idioms (cf. above, too) besides Buryat. In: The Mongolic Languages. (Routledge Language Family Series) Ed. Juha Janhunen. London - New York, Routledge 2003. pp. 102-128. 6

1 Castrén, M. Alexander: Versuch einer burjatischen Sprachlehre nebst kurzem Wörterverzeichniss. Hrsg. von Anton Schiefner. St. Petersburg, Buchdruckerei der Kaiserlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften 1857. 6

2 Jülg, Bernhard: On the Present State of Mongolian Researches. In: Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society. (New Series) XIV. I. (1882). pp. 42-65. Cf. Preface to the Grammar, p. XII (p. 13). 6

1 Preface to the Grammar, p. XII (p. 13). 6

4 Cf. Jülg: Op. cit. pp. 56-63. 6

5 Preface to the Grammar, pp. I

—II (pp. 2-3). Bálint did not mention their names, nonetheless it was obvious for the contemporaries that he meant the eminent linguists Pál Hunfalvy (1810-1891) and József Budenz (1836-1892). Budenz prepared a brief Mongolian and a brief Manchu grammar certainly known for Bálint, too (though they appeared after the completion of the Grammar). Cf. Budenz, József: Rövid mongol nyelvtan. In: Nyelvtudományi Közlemények. XXI. (1887-1890), pp. 274-320. [Brief Mongolian grammar. In: Linguistic Proceedings], Re-edited with a foreword of Lajos Ligeti. Budapest, Körösi Csorna Társaság 1977. (A Körösi Csorna Társaság Magyar Nyelvű Kiadványai XIII.) [Publications of the Csorna de Körös Society in Hungarian]; Budenz, József: A mandsu nyelv alaktana. In: Nyelvtudományi Közlemények. XX. (1886—1887), pp. 307-319, 380-400, 475-476. [Morphology of the Manchu language. In: Linguistic Proceedings], Re-edited with a foreword of Lajos Ligeti. Budapest, Körösi Csorna Társaság 1977. (A Körösi Csorna Társaság Magyar Nyelvű Kiadványai XII.) [Publications of the Csorna de Körös Society in Hungarian], XVIII