Josef Budenz () (13 June 1836 – 15 April 1892) was a German comparative linguist specializing in

Finno-Ugric Finno-Ugric () is a traditional linguistic grouping of all languages in the Uralic languages, Uralic language family except for the Samoyedic languages. Its once commonly accepted status as a subfamily of Uralic is based on criteria formulated in ...

who researched the origins of the

Hungarian language Hungarian, or Magyar (, ), is an Ugric language of the Uralic language family spoken in Hungary and parts of several neighboring countries. It is the official language of Hungary and one of the 24 official languages of the European Union. Out ...

Early life and education

Josef Budenz graduated from high school in

Fulda Fulda () (historically in English called Fuld) is a city in Hesse, Germany; it is located on the river Fulda and is the administrative seat of the Fulda district (''Kreis''). In 1990, the city hosted the 30th Hessentag state festival. Histor ...

in 1854 and studied in

Marburg Marburg (; ) is a college town, university town in the States of Germany, German federal state () of Hesse, capital of the Marburg-Biedenkopf Districts of Germany, district (). The town area spreads along the valley of the river Lahn and has ...

and from 1855 for three years in

Göttingen Göttingen (, ; ; ) is a college town, university city in Lower Saxony, central Germany, the Capital (political), capital of Göttingen (district), the eponymous district. The River Leine runs through it. According to the 2022 German census, t ...

, among others with Theodor Benfey with a focus on

Indo-European The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the northern Indian subcontinent, most of Europe, and the Iranian plateau with additional native branches found in regions such as Sri Lanka, the Maldives, parts of Central Asia (e. ...

comparative linguistics Comparative linguistics is a branch of historical linguistics that is concerned with comparing languages to establish their historical relatedness. Genetic relatedness implies a common origin or proto-language and comparative linguistics aim ...

. He received his doctorate in 1858.

Career

In 1858 he was in Budapest and taught in

Székesfehérvár Székesfehérvár (; ; ; ; Serbian language, Serbian: ''Стони Београд''; ), known colloquially as Fehérvár (), is a city in central Hungary, and the country's ninth-largest city. It is the Regions of Hungary, regional capital of C ...

. In 1861 he was appointed librarian of the

Hungarian Academy of Sciences The Hungarian Academy of Sciences ( , MTA) is Hungary’s foremost and most prestigious learned society. Its headquarters are located along the banks of the Danube in Budapest, between Széchenyi rakpart and Akadémia utca. The Academy's primar ...

. He deepened his knowledge of Uralic and

Altaic The Altaic () languages are a group of languages comprising the Turkic, Mongolic and Tungusic language families, with some linguists including the Koreanic and Japonic families. These languages share agglutinative morphology, head-final ...

languages under the guidance of . From 1868 he was a full professor of Altaic comparative linguistics, the chair having been established especially for him. In 1871 he became a full member of the

. On 17 March 1884, he was honored in the university auditorium. From 1876 he was a corresponding member of the

Russian Academy of Sciences The Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS; ''Rossíyskaya akadémiya naúk'') consists of the national academy of Russia; a network of scientific research institutes from across the Russian Federation; and additional scientific and social units such ...

in St. Petersburg.

Origins of Hungarian

Today, the consensus among linguists is that Hungarian is a member of the Uralic family of languages. The classification of Hungarian as a Uralic/Finno-Ugric rather than a Turkic language was a matter of impassioned political controversy throughout the 18th and into the 19th centuries. During the latter half of the 19th century, a competing hypothesis proposed a Turkic affinity of Hungarian, or, alternatively, that both the Uralic and the Turkic families formed part of a superfamily of

Ural–Altaic languages Ural-Altaic, Uralo-Altaic, Uraltaic, or Turanic is a linguistic convergence zone and abandoned language-family proposal uniting the Uralic and the Altaic (in the narrow sense) languages. It is now generally agreed that even the Altaic langua ...

. The debate came to a head in the 1880s between the two camps, known as the Ugric-Turkic war. One camp proposed that Hungarians were related to Turanians, supported by Arminius Vambery who wrote a book on the topic and was a friend of Budenz. Budenz attacked Vambery's book in a lecture at the Hungarian Academy, and challenged his methods as unscientific. Vambery struck back with his own accusations against his friend. After things settled, the Finno-Ugric hypothesis was concluded the sounder of the two, mainly based on work by Budenz.

Death

Budenz died in Budapest on 15 April 1892, and was buried on 17 April 1892.

Memorials and retrospectives

On 27 May 1963, a memorial plaque was dedicated in his honor at the house where he was born, currently in use as the town hall of the village where he formerly attended school in Rasdorf. The commemorative plaque bears the inscription: "Here stood until 1954 the house in which on 13 June 1836 Joseph Budenz was born. He was a professor at the University of Budapest from 1868 until his death on 15 April 1892, and is the founder of modern Finno-Ugric comparative linguistics. Donated by the Societas Uralo-Altaica on May 23, 1963." The Fuldaer Geschichtsblätter also published an article about him in 1936 on the centenary of his birth. as cited in The Budenz ''Gymnasium'' in Budapest published a Budenz memorial book in Hungarian in 2002. A "Budenz Day" is held every year at the Finno-Ugrian Seminar of the University of Göttingen.

Works

* * ''Übersicht der Verzweigung der ugrischen Sprachen'', 1878 * (Reproduction of the original published in Budapest 1873-1881, with an introduction by Gyula Décsy)

References

;Notes ;Citations

External links

Jozsef Budenz
in th

(in Hungarian) {{DEFAULTSORT:Budenz, Josef 1836 births 1892 deaths Immigrants to the Austrian Empire 19th-century German linguists Finno-Ugrists Scholars from the Austrian Empire Linguists from Austria-Hungary German librarians Linguists of Hungarian Members of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences