É. Apor , I. Ormos (ed.): Goldziher Memorial Conference, June 21–22, 2000, Budapest.
HOPKINS, Simon: The Language Studies of Ignaz Goldziher
THE LANGUAGE STUDIES OF IGNAZ GOLDZIHER had shown) had preserved considerable traces at least of tanwin, one might surmise that the conservatism of the language should increase as one left the cities of the Levant and travelled south into the nomadic culture of the peninsula. Such a train of thought in 1878 would not have been at all unreasonable. No dialectological work had yet then been done to prove or disprove such a hypothesis, which in itself is rather plausible. Even today there are large tracts of Arabia which remain unknown to Arabic dialectology. The dialects of the regions indicated by Palgrave, however, have been studied in some detail and the plain fact is that no dialect remotely matching the description of Palgrave has yet been discovered. His statements on the survival of spoken classical Arabic in the mouths of the "smallest and raggedest" children of Najd are but a romantic invention. 23 3 8. Conclusion Having given a sketch of Goldziher's philological interests in and his writings on language subjects, Arabic and other, we may sum up and conclude. Goldziher's name lives primarily, and with every justification, as the founder of the modern study of Islam. As a philologist in the narrow, i.e. the linguistic and textual, sense he is less well known. It is as an Islamist, not as an Arabist that Goldziher's name is especially remembered and revered. We have seen, however, that his interests in linguistic subjects were rather wide, not only in Arabic but in other languages also, and that he 23 3 Goldziher was not alone in accepting Palgrave's statements, see F. W. M. Philippi, Wesen und Ursprung des Status Constructus im Hebräischen, Weimar 1871, 124 n. 2. Highly interesting in this connection are the remarks of A. Socin, Diwan aus Centraiarabien, herausgegeben von H. Stumme, III, Leipzig 1901, 75-78 §43, who went so far as to doubt that Palgrave had been in Arabia at all. Strangely enough, Goldziher's friend Landberg, an experienced dialectologist, was also of the opinion that fully inflected Arabic was still spoken in parts of Arabia; see his Critica Arabica 1, Leiden 1886, 56 and La langue arabe et ses dialectes. Leide 1905, 69. Snouck Hurgronje, D' . C. Landberg 's "Studien " geprüft, Leiden 1887, 14 [= Id., Verspreide Geschäften V, Bonn - Leipzig, 129] flatly denied this claim and Nöldeke, ZDMG 59 (1905), 416 was highly sceptical about the reliability of much of Landberg's information, but Landberg's statement was given credence by a number of Goldziher's contemporaries, among them G. Jacob, Altarabisches Beduinenleben\ Berlin 1897, 175 and even C. Brockelmann, Grundriss der vergleichenden Grammatik der semitischen Sprachen 1, Berlin 1908, 570 n. 1. A correct account of the matter is given by C. Rabin, Ancient West Arabian, London 1951, 24 n. 3. In such things the will to believe can be very strong indeed, cf. Boswell, Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D, ed. R. W. Chapman, Oxford 1924, 241: "Dr. Gerrard, at Aberdeen, told us, that when he was in Wales, he was shewn a valley inhabited by Danes, who still retain their own language, and are quite a distinct people. Dr Johnson thought it could not be true, or all the kingdom must have heard of it". 135
