Ignác Kúnos (originally ''Ignác Lusztig;'' 22 September 1860 in Hajdúsámson,

Hungary Hungary is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning much of the Pannonian Basin, Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Croatia and ...

– 12 January 1945 in

Budapest Budapest is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns of Hungary, most populous city of Hungary. It is the List of cities in the European Union by population within city limits, tenth-largest city in the European Union by popul ...

) was a Hungarian linguist, turkologist, folklorist, a correspondent member 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 ...

. At his time he was one of the most recognised scholars of the Turkish folk literature and Turkish dialectology. Kunos attended the Reformed College in

Debrecen Debrecen ( ; ; ; ) is Hungary's cities of Hungary, second-largest city, after Budapest, the regional centre of the Northern Great Plain Regions of Hungary, region and the seat of Hajdú-Bihar County. A city with county rights, it was the large ...

, then studied linguistics at the Budapest University between 1879 and 1882. With the financial support of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences and the Budapest Jewish community he spent five years in

Constantinople Constantinople (#Names of Constantinople, see other names) was a historical city located on the Bosporus that served as the capital of the Roman Empire, Roman, Byzantine Empire, Byzantine, Latin Empire, Latin, and Ottoman Empire, Ottoman empire ...

studying Turkish language and culture. In 1890 he was appointed at the Budapest University as professor of the Turkish philology. Between 1899-1919 he was the director of the newly organized Oriental College of Commerce in Budapest. From 1919 until 1922 he held the same post at the Oriental Institute integrated into the Budapest University of Economics, and then from 1922 he taught Turkish linguistic at the university. In the summer of 1925 and 1926, invited by the Turkish government, he was professor at the

Ankara Ankara is the capital city of Turkey and List of national capitals by area, the largest capital by area in the world. Located in the Central Anatolia Region, central part of Anatolia, the city has a population of 5,290,822 in its urban center ( ...

and Istanbul Universities, besides this in 1925 he organized the Department of Folkloristics at the Istanbul University. He died during the soviet siege of Budapest. At the beginning of his career he mainly focused on the

dialectology Dialectology (from Ancient Greek, Greek , ''dialektos'', "talk, dialect"; and , ''-logy, -logia'') is the scientific study of dialects: subsets of languages. Though in the 19th century a branch of historical linguistics, dialectology is often now c ...

phonological Phonology (formerly also phonemics or phonematics: "phonemics ''n.'' 'obsolescent''1. Any procedure for identifying the phonemes of a language from a corpus of data. 2. (formerly also phonematics) A former synonym for phonology, often prefer ...

and morphological matters 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 ...

as well as the ones of the

Mordvinic languages The Mordvinic languages, also known as the Mordvin, Mordovian or Mordvinian languages (, ''mordovskiye yazyki''), are a subgroup of the Uralic languages, comprising the closely related Erzya language and Moksha language, both spoken in Mordovia ...

. Being pupil of Ármin Vámbéry, his interest was directed towards

Turkish language Turkish ( , , also known as 'Turkish of Turkey') is the most widely spoken of the Turkic languages, a member of Oghuz languages, Oghuz branch with around 90 million speakers. It is the national language of Turkey and one of two official languag ...

and philology. From 1885 until 1890, during his stay in Constantinople, he traveled to

Rumelia Rumelia (; ; ) was a historical region in Southeastern Europe that was administered by the Ottoman Empire, roughly corresponding to the Balkans. In its wider sense, it was used to refer to all Ottoman possessions and Vassal state, vassals in E ...

Anatolia Anatolia (), also known as Asia Minor, is a peninsula in West Asia that makes up the majority of the land area of Turkey. It is the westernmost protrusion of Asia and is geographically bounded by the Mediterranean Sea to the south, the Aegean ...

Syria Syria, officially the Syrian Arab Republic, is a country in West Asia located in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Levant. It borders the Mediterranean Sea to the west, Turkey to Syria–Turkey border, the north, Iraq to Iraq–Syria border, t ...

Palestine Palestine, officially the State of Palestine, is a country in West Asia. Recognized by International recognition of Palestine, 147 of the UN's 193 member states, it encompasses the Israeli-occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and th ...

and

Egypt Egypt ( , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a country spanning the Northeast Africa, northeast corner of Africa and Western Asia, southwest corner of Asia via the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to northe ...

. During his trip he observed and studied the characteristics of the Turkish dialects, ethnography, folk poetry and folk customs of Turkish and other local peoples. The most significant merit of him was that he collected an impressive amount of folk tales and anecdotes that were published in Hungarian as well as many other European languages. As a recognition of his scientific contributions, he was elected a correspondent member of the

, but he also was a vice-president of the International Society for the Investigation of Central and Eastern Asia.

Works

*''Turkish Fairy Tales and Folk Tales.'' London, 1896. *''Mundarten der Osmanen.'' Sankt-Petersburg, 1899. *''Schejk Sulejman efendi’s Tscagataj-osmanisches Wörterbuch.'' Budapest, 1902. *''Türkische Vorkserzählungen.'' Leiden, 1905. *''Türkische Volksmärchen aus Stambul.'' Leiden, 1905. *''Beiträge zum Studium der türkischen Sprache und Literatur.'' Leipzig & New York, 1907. *''Türkische Volksmärchen aus Ada-kale.'' Leipzig & New York, 1907. *''Türkisches Volksschauspiel.'' Leipzig, 1908. *''Forty-four Turkish Fairy Tales.'' London, Harrap, 1914, 364 p. *''Turkish Fairy Tales and Folk Tales.'' New York, Dover, 1969, 275 p. *''Kasantatarische Volkslieder.'' Hrsg. Zsuzsa Kakuk. Budapest, MTA Könyvtára, 1980, 138 p. = Keleti Tanulmányok. *
Kasantatarische Volksmärchen
'' Hrsg. Zsuzsa Kakuk. Budapest, MTA Könyvtára, 1989, 220 p. = Keleti Tanulmányok. *''Mischärtatarische Texte mit Wörterverzeichnis.'' Hrsg. Zsuzsa Kakuk. Szeged & Amsterdam, JATE & Holland, 1996, 192 p.

References

*''A Magyar Tudományos Akadémia tagjai 1825–2002 II.'' embers of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences 1825-2002.Budapest, 2003, pp. 662. *Kinga Dévényi
Cataloguing Islamic manuscripts
In: Melcom - Kazan 2009. {{DEFAULTSORT:Kunos Ignac Linguists from Hungary Hungarian orientalists Hungarian Jews Turkologists Members of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences Hungarian folklorists 1860 births 1945 deaths Budapest University alumni Dialectologists Hungarian civilians killed in World War II Linguists from Austria-Hungary