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

HOPKINS, Simon: The Language Studies of Ignaz Goldziher

SIMON HOPKINS Mandaic studies as indicative of his general circumstances and suppose that his private reading in other languages too was curtailed for the same reason.'

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6 He did not, however, entirely lose contact with languages outside his principal field of interest; thus, in 1911 he taught Syriac at the University of Budapest and was eager to read the latest publication of Sachau on the Elephantine papyri.

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7 5. The later part of Goldziher's career 1878-1921 We have seen that already as a teenager Goldziher was much occupied, inter alia, with Hebrew and Turkish and had published, in German and Hungarian respectively, on both. From the second period of his career, however, these languages, and others, played a subsidiary role in his work; he wrote less and less on exclusively Hebrew and Jewish subjects and his Islamic research depended far more on Arabic than on Turkish sources. He of course continued to use Hebrew and Turkish (and Persian

128 etc.) a great deal, but less for their own sake than as part of his wider investigations into the intellectual and cultural history of Islam. In his later years the reading of Turkish reminded him with pleasant nostalgia of the studies of his youth, for he never lost his early interest in the Turkish language.'

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9 Henceforth he did not produce independent work in the field of Hebrew, but restricted himself to reviews of studies published by others; his Hungarian review of works by Gesenius and Stade has been mentioned above n. 40. His written use of Hebrew also belongs to an earlier period.

1'" Among the small number of book gräulichen Abhaltungen habe ich ja dann so vieles vernachlässigen müssen, worin heimisch zu bleiben ich vorgezogen hätte. Bios in bezug auf die religionsgeschichtlichen Dinge habe ich mich aus der Litteratur einigermassen auf dem laufenden erhalten können, aber doch nur sehr mangelhaft, da man ja ohne selbständige Handhabung der Texte zu nichts rechtem kommen kann". 1. O.]. 12

6 The account given here is based upon that of Goldziher himself. One wonders, however, whether his conditions of employment were quite as unfavourable to study as he indicates. 12

7 Simon, Letters 354. 18 He regretted not knowing Pahlavi (Tagebuch 189; Simon, Letters 218) and had not studied Kurdish (Hanisch, Briefwechsel 117). 12

6 Hanisch, Briefwechsel 186, 197, 230, 233, 358. We may note in passing a small Turkish detail brought to Goldziher's attention by M. Hartmann, viz. The pronunciation of in Ottoman as kadi, not kazi as Goldziher had thought (ibid. 55, 56, 59). Goldziher later referred to himself, ibid. 213, as "ich armer Untürke". 13

0 [On 8.4.1862, at the age of twelve Goldziher made a solemn Hebrew pledge to lead a virtuous life and to honour his parents all his days. This pledge, written in square Hebrew characters, was published in facsimile by Sándor [= Alexander] Büchler, 'A Goldzieherék családfájáról' [On the family tree of the Goldziehers] in: Múlt és Jövő 1938, 114. See also Alexander [= Sándor] Scheiber, 'A supplementary bibliography of the literary work of Ignace Goldziher', in: Ignace Goldziher Memorial Volume I, ed. Samuel Löwinger & 108