Hungarian Linguistics

The Pray-Codex

The Sermon and the Prayer is the oldest coherent Hungarian linguistic relic. It is known to the public since the 18-th century, when George Pray mentioned it and published few lines of it (Vita S. Elisabethae viduae ... Tyrnarie, 1770), the whole text however became known from Janos Sajnovics' Demonstratio (Nagyszombat, 1770).

The text is located in the so-called Pray-Codex, a mass-book, held in the Hungarian National Museum under ref. no. Quart. Hung. 387, in older times called Sacramentum Boldvense or Missale Posoniense.

The codex was written between 1183-1210 for the Benedictine Deacon Church of Pozsony county (today Bratislava). Apart of the missal, it consists of funeral rites and even historical notes at the end (Small Chronicles of Pozsony). The Sermon and Pray, although belonging to the funeral rites, is not positioned there, but after the prayer following the rites of November 2nd on page 154.

The Sermon and Pray is consisting of two parts. The second part is the proper translation of Oremus fratres charissimi pro spiritu found in the funeral rites. The first part is however a free translation of the Optime nostis fratres charissimi found on page 154, and it can be regarded as an original art of the Hungarian prose.

The text is interesting for literature not only for its age, but also for its effective, clear and concise style. From historical-linguistic point of view however it is invaluable: we can learn many things from here.

  1. Close vowels are present throughout the text, like: hotolm hatalom, pukul pokol, nopun napon, ozuk azok etc.
  2. The nouns with -at/-et suffixes still have the original v-form, like: Engede urdung intetvinec.
  3. Many historical developmental forms can be seen in the morphology and syntax. We know that the 2nd person plural has got suffix -tok/-tök as látjátok feleim szömtökkel. But we learnt that even the 1st person had once this form.
  4. The imádjunk has got this form: vimádjamok, õsünk this form: ísemök etc.
  5. Today's -ból-bõl and -ba/-be suffixes here are still two-parted, and there is no vowel harmony between the suffixes and the root, for example: tömlõcébõl is expressed as temnöcébelõl, or világba as világbelé etc. This form is explaining the origin of the suffixes.
  6. The verb conjugation is using the older (more complete) form like: terömtevé today teremté, eneyc today enné-ik or ennék etc.
  7. On many places the semantics is interesting as well. It is not surprising, that the linguists show permanent interest since its discovery.

Bibliography

  1. Révai Nagy Lexikona, Révai RT Budapest 1910-1920 (band 9 pp.425-426).

Back to the Sermon back