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Seeking Mezzofanti quote confirmation

 Language Learning Forum : Polyglots Post Reply
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Heinrich S.
Groupie
Germany
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Studies: French

 
 Message 1 of 9
23 August 2009 at 10:49pm | IP Logged 
Hi,

can anyone confirm the following quote attributed to Mezzofanti (as listed on http://www.hungarian-history.hu/lib/hunspir/hsp56.htm)? I would guess the 100 languages is an exaggeration, but I'm looking for a citation of the melodious bit (does Russell's biography of Mezzofanti contain this? If so, a link to the appropriate page would be appreciated)

"Mezzofanti, who spoke one hundred languages and was perhaps the greatest linguistic genius of all time, held that "next to Italian and Greek, Hungarian is the most melodious tongue in the world with utmost adaptability for poetry.""

(sorry for posting under found alias BTW)
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Volte
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Switzerland
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 Message 2 of 9
23 August 2009 at 11:02pm | IP Logged 
Your Hungarian page is the only page I've been able to find containing that quote.

Hungarian is an intriguing-sounding language; I'd recommend listening to it and forming your own opinion.

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Heinrich S.
Groupie
Germany
Joined 6935 days ago
63 posts - 85 votes 
Studies: French

 
 Message 3 of 9
25 August 2009 at 10:21pm | IP Logged 
Volte wrote:
Your Hungarian page is the only page I've been able to find containing that quote.


Thanks for looking, I couldn't find it either using Google or the site search but the Russell biography seems to have been scanned with OCR (it contains lots of typical typos) so it might still be in there somewhere. The trouble is that the text is broken up into many pages and I neither want to appear to attack the site (by e.g. mass spidering it using wget) nor miss pages. If it were available as a single file that would already help.

Volte wrote:
Hungarian is an intriguing-sounding language; I'd recommend listening to it and forming your own opinion.


I'm a native speaker of the language and concerned with the citation itself: did an original text contain this or a biographer paraphrase or ascribe the quote to him?
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William Camden
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 Message 4 of 9
25 August 2009 at 11:08pm | IP Logged 
After nearly a millennium of literate Hungarians writing in Latin or German, Hungarian was just starting to develop as a written language in the 19th century. It might be a genuine quote, but an over-enthusiastic Hungarian might have made a Mezzofanti quote up, to bolster the language's claims.
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Volte
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 Message 5 of 9
26 August 2009 at 4:44am | IP Logged 
Heinrich S. wrote:
Volte wrote:
Your Hungarian page is the only page I've been able to find containing that quote.


Thanks for looking, I couldn't find it either using Google or the site search but the Russell biography seems to have been scanned with OCR (it contains lots of typical typos) so it might still be in there somewhere. The trouble is that the text is broken up into many pages and I neither want to appear to attack the site (by e.g. mass spidering it using wget) nor miss pages. If it were available as a single file that would already help.


Searching for 'mezzofanti melodious', 'mezzofanti adaptability', and 'mezzofanti "for poetry"' on this site with google (using its site: feature) don't turn up anything promising either; the book has some mis-scanned words, but not that many.

I don't think slowly mirroring a few hundred pages with wget should be a problem. If you're concerned, use --wait=60 to retrieve only one page a minute - you should still be done in a few hours.


Edit: the web seems full of "quotes" about Hungarian, reputedly by Mezzofanti, and with no further sourcing - another example is this:
"1817 - CARDINAL GIUSEPPE MEZZOFANTI, who understood 58 languages and spoke, among many of them, four dialects of Hungarian, greeted the Hungarian bailiff, József, in Bologna with a very spirited Hungarian speech. It was he who said to the Czech linguist, ÁGOSTON FRANKL: “Do you know which language is equal to Latin and Greek in its structure and rhythmic harmony? It is the Hungarian language. I am familiar with the new Hungarian poets, whose verses are completely mesmerizing. Let us watch the future, for the poetic genius will have a sudden upswing, which will prove my statement to be true. It seem as if the Hungarians themselves do not realize what a treasure is hidden in their language.” Cardinal Mezzofanti was made an honorary member of the Hungarian Academy of Science in 1832."

I'm not linking this, since quite a few websites have the text verbatim and I have no idea which is the original. It's just as unverified as the initial one in this thread, though. I'm quite dubious about both.


Edited by Volte on 26 August 2009 at 4:53am
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gbarv
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 Message 6 of 9
26 August 2009 at 9:40am | IP Logged 
The following quote appears on Kato Lomb's book "Polyglot: How I learn languages" available here. It's on page 180.

Quote:

According to the historical record, Mezzofanti learned as many as four Hungarian dialects from displaced soldiers. Whether a “pesthi” dialect actually existed and whether the “Eperies” dialect was in fact some variant of Slovak is difficult
to determine 150 years later. But it is more interesting to cite what Cardinal Mezzofanti thought about Hungarian:

"Do you know what language I place before all others, next to Greek and Italian, for constructive capability and rhythmical harmoniousness?—The Hungarian. I know some pieces of the later poets of Hungary, and their melody took me completely by surprise. Mark its future history and you will see in it a sudden outburst of poetic genius, which will fully confirm my prediction. The Hungarians themselves do not seem to be aware of what a treasure they have in their language.”
(Quoted by Watts, “Transactions of the Phyl. Society,” 1855)

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Heinrich S.
Groupie
Germany
Joined 6935 days ago
63 posts - 85 votes 
Studies: French

 
 Message 7 of 9
06 September 2009 at 7:06pm | IP Logged 
gbarv wrote:
The following quote appears on Kato Lomb's book "Polyglot: How I learn languages" available here. It's on page 180.

Quote:
According to the historical record, Mezzofanti learned as many as four Hungarian dialects from displaced soldiers. Whether a "pesthi" dialect actually existed and whether the "Eperies" dialect was in fact some variant of Slovak is difficult to determine 150 years later. But it is more interesting to cite what Cardinal Mezzofanti thought about Hungarian:

"Do you know what language I place before all others, next to Greek and Italian, for constructive capability and rhythmical harmoniousness?—The Hungarian. I know some pieces of the later poets of Hungary, and their melody took me completely by surprise. Mark its future history and you will see in it a sudden outburst of poetic genius, which will fully confirm my prediction. The Hungarians themselves do not seem to be aware of what a treasure they have in their language."
(Quoted by Watts, "Transactions of the Phyl. Society," 1855)


Thank you! The footnote to that reads: "The actual source is The Life of Cardinal Mezzofanti by C. W. Russel (1863), available online at http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/e/mezzofanti/index.html "

Since I think we can at least put some trust in Russell I will take this as confirmation of the citation (and see if I can spider the site :)

Incidentally, 'Pesti' refers to inhabitants (or language) of the eastern side of Budapest as divided by the Danube. 'pesthi' might be a bastardization that tries to mimic the proper s sound. In context it may refer to a more 'common' city dialect (Buda with its hills is the more upscale part of the city), although today there is no distinction (at least as far as the language goes).
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William Camden
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 Message 8 of 9
07 September 2009 at 9:00am | IP Logged 
The spelling Pesthi might be German-influenced. German was often spelt th in the 19th century where modern spelling would have t. For example, gethan instead of getan.

Edited by William Camden on 07 September 2009 at 9:01am


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