Wojtilla Gyula: A List of Words Sanskrit and Hungarian by Alexander Csoma de Kőrös.
II. Csoma and Sanskrit Studies
3. Hungarian and foreign reviews on Csoma's work in Indie languages and comparative linguistics István Horvát, the historian and ill-famed philologist, was the first to wrote notices criticising some points in Csoma's letter to Baron Neumann. He asks the question: "Did also Hungarian derive from Sanskrit?" Then he adds: "Would to the Allmighty that, lest Csorna should be dissappointed in his great expectations!... There are some Hungarian words scattered all over the languages in Europe, Asia, Africa, and America and particularly in Sanskrit, too. But a common origin of our nations does not come out from it". Then he goes on with his own speculation on Cumanian-Hunn-Hungarian identification and to express his expectations; it would be a happy thing if Csorna would turn his mind towards this problem. It is easy to see that Horvát totally misunderstood and consequently misinterpreted Csoma's thoughts. Next in turn was Ferenc Kállay, the self-made philologist who at least had reasonable information about contemporary specialised literature in Sanskrit grammar. On account of commenting on a letter by the French scholar Desnoyer, he says: "The presupposition that Sanskrit may offer information about Hungarian seems to be believable from the testimony of our traveller. Otherwise the same view can be guessed from the reports of Bournief /sic!/ and Baron Eckstein." 1 7 James Prinsep, himself an excellent scholar in Sanskrit and Indian epigraphy, secretary of the Asiatic Society of Bengal says in his letter to Gábor Döbrentei, secretary of the Hungarian Learned Society /= Academy/ dated on 20th January 1835 that Csorna had discovered a close affinity between the structure of Sanskrit and Hungarian. He had found the same between the languages derived from Sanskrit and Hungarian. He announced Csorna was going to write a work on that subject in Latin in the next three years. 3® Archibald Campbell, government agent and the medical doctor who took care of Csorna in the last days before he expired, remembered in his report: "Could he reach Lhassa, he felt that Sanskrit would have quickly enabled him to master the contents of its libraries, and in them he believed was to be found all that was wanting to give the real history of the Huns in their original condition and migrations..." " This opinion is of course the view of a "layman" and therefore is to be treated with criticism. We have the suspicion that dr. Campbell took Sanskrit for Tibetan. Henry Torrens, secretary of the Asiatic Society remarks in a footnote as follows: "I may add to Mr. Campbell's interesting paper such information as my memory enables me to give of the opinion held by the deceased philologist on the origin of
