É. Apor , I. Ormos (ed.): Goldziher Memorial Conference, June 21–22, 2000, Budapest.

ORMOS, István: Goldziher's Mother Tongue: A Contribution to the Study of the Language Situation in Hungary in the Nineteenth Century

GOLDZIHER'S MOTHER TONGUE population was Slovak. So it is perfectly likely that his mother tongue may also have been German.) There were at least certain people with whom Goldziher seems to have conversed in German (or perhaps Jüdisch-Deutsch

) all his life. One of these was Sámuel Kohn, Chief Rabbi of Budapest, who lived in the same building as Goldziher. Goldziher always addressed him as "Herr Doktor", while Kohn would address his friend as "Sie, Goldziher"."'

6 From these forms of address it appears that they conversed - at least partly in German, perhaps also switching to Jüdisch-Deutsch. Kohn, it will be remembered, was a staunch supporter of Magyarization, and also the first rabbi to deliver a sermon in Hungarian in the reform synagogue in Székesfehérvár in tsóy.

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7 Goldziher's wife, Laura Mittler, came from the south-eastern part of the Hungarian Great Plain: she was the daughter of a country doctor from the small village of Aradszentmárton."'

5 Her Hungarian is reported to have been poor. Jenő Péterfy, a close friend of Goldziher's, once told her: "A konyhája nagyon jó, ha még magyarul is megtanulna... " [Your cooking is very good; if you also learned Hungarian...].

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9 This suggests that the language the Goldzihers used among themselves was German - probably not Jewish-coloured German or Yiddish and that the two sons' mother tongue was probably German too. However, it can be assumed that the sons also learned Hungarian at a very early age, and that they grew up bilingual. In a letter dated 20 September 1898, Goldziher mentioned to Nöldeke that his two sons had spoken excellent German from early childhood on: "Der deutschen Sprache sind sie beide vollkommen mächtig und sie haben auch eine grosse Masse guter deutscher Litteratur von Kindesbeinen an in sich aufgenommen." [Both of them have a perfect command of the German language. From their earliest childhood on they have also absorbed a large quantity of good German literature.]

1

7" This wording could imply that German was not their mother tongue, but not necessarily. However, it is impossible to imagine that a mother would raise her sons in a language she knew imperfectly. Goldziher's elder son Miksa, however, seems to have written his own diary in Hungarian.

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1 A marginal note by Károly in the Tagebuch, at the point where Goldziher's wife tore off the part relating to their 16

6 Goldziher, Napló..., 12 (Scheiber's foreword). 16

7 Zsidó lexikon.... 494-495: Steinherz, A székesfehérvári zsidók... , 57. "'

5 Since 1920 Sinmartin, Romania. 16

9 István Zimándi: Péterfy Jenő és baráti köre [Jenő Péterfy and His Circle of Friends], (Irodalomtörténeti fűzetek 30), Budapest i960, 85. 17,

1 Simon, Ignác Goldziher..., 239. 17

1 A quotation from it in Zimándi is in Hungarian. There is no indication that it is a translation. Zimándi, Péterfy Jenő élete.... 483; Id., 'Péterfy Jenő utolsó éve' [The Last Year of Jenő Pcterfy

's Life], Irodalomtörténet 1957, 492. It seems to be lost. 239