TELEGDI, Zsigmond (born Weil). Enyig, county Veszprém 29.12.1909 — Budapest 5.3.1994. Hungarian Linguist. Son of solicitor Ede Weil and Elza Erzsébet, lost early his father. Grew up in Székesfehérvár and attended Jewish secondary school there 1919-27. Briefly studied at Rabbinical seminary in Budapest, but interrupted and studied Semitic and Iranian linguistics at Breslau (1929-30) and Paris (1930-31, i.al. under Benveniste). Ph.D. 1933 Budapest. In 1933-36 unpaid Assistant Professor under Gyula Németh, then after a stay at Vienna private tutor until 1945, more or less underground. In 1945 he joined the Communist Party and adopted Marrism (and later abandoned it). In 1945-48 Librarian in Budapest Municipal Library, then chairman of the National Centre of Libraries until 1950. PD 1947 in Iranian at Budapest. From 1952 Reader, then Professor of General Linguistics at Budapest, retired 1979. Married Emma Haas.
After the war Telegdi concentrated on general linguistics and New Persian, also on the history of linguistics (J. Grimm, W. von Humboldt).
Publications: “Une note Pehlevie (à propos de Kārnāmak I, 18)”, JA 224, 1934, 319f.; “Essai sur la phonétique des emprunts iraniens en araméen talmudique”, JA 226, 1935, 177-256 (rev. transl. of his diss.); “Notes sur la grammaire du sogdien chrétien”, JA 230, 1938, 205-233.
– Numerous further works listed in Wikipedia, mostly on Persian and Linguistics, often in Hungarian.
– Opera omnia. 1-2. Budapest 2007-08.
Sources: É.M. Jeremiás, Acta Ling. Hung. 55, 2008, 101-120; *Hungarian Wikipedia; AOHu 48:1-2 is Telegdi Memorial Volume with photo and bibliography (9-14), but no life.
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