Wojtilla Gyula: A List of Words Sanskrit and Hungarian by Alexander Csoma de Kőrös.
II. Csoma and Sanskrit Studies
44 thische n (1833) which complemented Bopp's earlier works. The role of the great savant Wilhelm von Humboldt (1767-1835) had exercised great influence on the progress of general linguistics. The correspondence between Humboldt and Bopp reveal a fruitful cooperation .IS Unfortunately Csorna was cut off from these new developments, he had to think independently and take the risk of going sometimes in wrong directions. His last information about comparative philology was the view expounded by Sir William Jones. In one of his letters from 1825 he says that India is the place "whence according to Sir William Jones' opinion, the Chinese, Tartars, Indians, Persians, Syrians, Arabians, Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, Gauls, Goths, Germans, and other Sclavonians derived their civilisation or culture in their arts and sciences. » Hungary E.J. Fischer in his De origine Ungroru m (1656) was perhaps the first to compare Hungarian and Persian and Indian numerals: "etj/sic!/, tiz, ezer /one, ten, thousand/: Persian, Indian ik, dös , hezar. 2 0 The idea to compare Hungarian words and words from different Indian languages developed in Ignáz Aurelius Fessler's Die Geschichten der Ungarn und ihrer Landsasse n (1812-1825). Fessler presented a list of comparisons of words at the end of the first volume of his bulky work. These comparisons are as follows: magy . könyök: indostani bengáli kunji, decani kunji hus : bengáli gus, decani goscht, perzsa guscht tej: bengáli, decani dud, multani djud tiz: bengáli des, das, decani dos száz: perzsa sjad, bengáli sav, decano soul ezer: bengáli, decani hazar, perzsa kurd hazar. Ignaz Aurelius Fessler regarded Hungarians of Turkish origin who derived ultimately from northern India. That is all that scholarship offered to Csorna before his departure to the east. It is unlikely that he was familiar with this book. The next period of Sanskrit studies in Hungary coincides with Csorna's Sanskrit studies in India. There is not too much noteworthy, but we will dwell upon it for a short while in order to contrast it with Csoma's knowledge in Sanskrit and his results in scientific work. József Borgátai Szabó, a friend and class-mate of Csorna in Göttingen wrote a short paper about Sanskrit studies in the Tudományos Gyűjtemén y (1826). It is a very poor specimen of mistaken efforts. He assumed that Sanskrit contained much more Hungarian words than any of the living and dead languages in Europe. For a definite answer he turns to Csorna and mainly expects to get it from him. 2 2 A rigorous negative criticism upon his work came very soon from the pen of Gregor Dankovszky in 1827. Dankovszky pointed out sharply Borgátai Szabó's amateurism. He himself conceived
