Sajnovics’sDemonstratioand Gyarmathi’sAffinitas: Terminology and methodology

Abstract

János Sajnovics and Sámuel Gyarmathi are usually appreciated as the first scholars to have proven the relatedness of the Finno-Ugric languages. This paper argues that the significance of Demonstratio and Affinitas lies not so much in their contribution to the idea of relatedness (since that had been in the air before them) as in the synthesis they give. Sajnovics and Gyarmathi arranged previously known but unsystematic information and arguments into a clear and coherent structure. They applied the principles of linguistic comparison very consciously and pointed out the importance of the evidence of grammar. The most important aspect of their work is the way it anticipated the methods of modern linguistics: deduction, logical inference, philological methods with Sajnovics, and reconstruction and the assumption of hypothetical transitional forms with Gyarmathi. In its purpose, Sajnovics's book is closer to genealogical comparison, Gyarmathi's to typological comparison.

József Szinnyei (1857–1943)

“…The work of Révai in this area was worthy of attention, among other things, because initially he was an adherent of the idea of relatedness of Hungarian and Hebrew. Szinnyei expressed his appreciation for the activities and achievements of two of Révai's forerunners, János Sajnovics and Sámuel Gyarmathi (see Vladár 2008), in clarifying the family relationships of the Hungarian language. He reviewed the sources from which Révai had taken his data and pieces of information.…”