Birtalan Ágnes: Kalmyk Folklore and Folk Culture in the Mid-19th Century: Philological Studies on the Basis of Gábor Bálint of Szentkatolna’s Kalmyk Texts.
KALMYK VERNACULAR AND WRITTEN LANGUAGE
cattle, 17 6 two horses and three camels. I got it enlisted into the register of purchasing [the livestock] of the Kalmyk market. In addition, the book-keeper 17 7 himself might witness that I spent two nights in his (?) yurt. This is the reason why I humbly turn with this [request] and statement to the administration of this territory. Sending this request 17 8 to the great and high officials, I kindly ask for the return of the livestock driven away from me randomly by Sarancob and for the severe punishment 1 7'' of the peasant (muÉik) Saroncob who drove my livestock away arbitrarily. THE LETTERS RECORDED BY BÁLINT IN THE CONTEXT OF THE KALMYK EPISTOLOGRAPHY Kalmyk epistolographical items have been investigated by a few scholars who focused on the translation and also on some philological elaboration of particular groups of letters. As mentioned above in the introduction to the texts of the letters, John R. Krueger, William Rozyczki and Robert G. Service published a collection of Kalmyk letters in Oirat script kept in the Berlin State Archive, consisting of 87 items, written from 1773 to 1882. 18 0 The same team elaborated and published with English translation the Kalmyk letters in Oirat script of the Moravian Archives at Herrnhut (Unitas Fratrum), including 82 items from the time period 1801-1809 18 1 and studied by Erich Haenish as well. 18 2 Gedejeva released the letters written by Ubasi Khan with Modern Kalmyk and Russian translations, and are kept in the National Archive of the Kalmyk Republic; the collection consists of 33 items and covers the years 1763-1769. 18, Besides, studies on particular letters have appeared as well. 18 4 The letters discussed in the above mentioned studies had been created prior to Bálint's records and are items of real correspondence. Bálint's letter were definitely recorded from the students of some of the schools visited by him and could be comprehended as "sample-texts" similar to those written for educational booklets or grammar-books, i. e. as models for the students of proper letter-writing. All the letters are accurately compiled according to the epistolographic etiquette and style and meet the requirements of the generally accepted letter-structure. Hereafter the structure of Bálint's records is examined in the context of the traditional epistolographic scheme with some parallels from other collections. 17 6 A reference on the five kinds of livestock, which is unusual because the Kalmyks raise four kinds of livestock. Cf. text and notes of the chapter About how the Kalmyks Pasture their Livestock. 17 7 Bálint bodokcin, read bodgcin (genitive) (?) cf. Kalm.D. bodac "Schatzer. Taxator, Rechner" (R. 48), Kalm.D. "séjotéik, taksator, ocenäiik" (Mun 103), cf. bodgé "sud'ja" (Mun 103). 1 " Bálint ene tuski uéirigi lit. "about this reason". 17 9 Bálint cajila xaryülxuigi, Kalm. cajlä (commitaive) xaryülxig lit. "to make him meet with the law". 18 0 Krueger - Rozyczki - Service: An Oirat-script Collection of Letters, pp. 109-136. 18 1 Krueger - Service: Kalmyk Old-Script Documents. 18 2 Haenish, Erich: Kalmykische Fragmente. In: UAJb 25. (1953) pp. 283-294. 18 1 Gedejeva: Pis nta namestnika Kalmyckogo Hanstva Ubasi. 18 4 The following bibliographical items were not yet accessible while preparing the Manuscript for publication: Rozycki. William: Shaming the Germans: A Kalmyk Mongolian letter from 1780. In: Jinbunshakai kagakukenkyu [Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences], 42. (2001) pp 65-70. Susejeva, D. A.: Pis'ma Ajuki hana i jego sovremennikov (1714-1724): Opyt lingvosociologiceskogo issledovamja. Elista 2003. In the bibliographical list of William Rozycki there are three papers introduced at various conferences devoted to some chosen letters from the above collections, however, these are not at my disposal currently. 35