BÁLINT-ILLYÉS, Gábor Szentkátolnai. Szentkátolna (now Catalina in Romania) 13.3.1844 — Temesvár (now Timişoara in Romania) 25.5.1913. Hungarian Altaic Scholar, Polyglott and Linguist, also interested in Dravidian. Professor in Kolozsvár (now Cluj-Napoca in Romania). Son of Endre Bálint, of the Szekely noble family, and Agnes Illyés. He learnt many languages already as a schoolboy in Nagyvárad (Oradea). Studied Law at Vienna and Budapest, also attended the Orientalische Akademie. Richterprüfung 1871, left soon for his first journey to Astrahan and Mongolia, returned 1875. In 1877 in China and India (studied Tamil), 1879 in Anatolia, 1880-81 in Bosnia, 1888-90 in Athens. From 1897 Professor of Ural-Altaic Philology at Kolozsvár University. He rejected the Finno-Ugrian background of Hungarian and made an attempt to find a genetic relationship between Hungarian and Tamil (severely criticized by Budenz and Hunfalvy). This unlikely hypothesis seriously damaged his career and is now rightly forgotten.
Publications: Several publications on Tatar, Mongol, and Manchu.
– “A tamul nyelva turáni nyelvek sansvkritja”, Erdélyi Múzeum Bölcselet 1888, 33-55.
– Tamil tanulmányok. (Tamil Studies) 1894 / Tamulische (dravidische) Studien. 432 p. Vienna n.d. (1898, including a Tamil Grammar).
Sources: Das Geistige Ungern 1, 49; Bethlenfalvy 1981, 23; *L.J. Nagy, “G.B.’s journey to the Mongols”, AOHu 9, 1959, 311-317; Wikipedia with drawing, more in *Hungarian version; no works in Puskás 1991.
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