 | ||
Ágoston Gellért (Tapolca, Kingdom of Hungary 12 September 1738 – Buda, Kingdom of Hungary 21 August 1795) was an early researcher, linguist and historian of Finno-Ugric languages.
Biography
Géllert became acquainted with the Jesuit monk János Sajnovics, who was the first to investigate the relationships between the Hungarian language and Sami languages (known as "Lappic").
In 1769, Sajnovics took Gellért along on his first expedition, initiated by Christian VII of Denmark on behalf of Maria Theresa and led by Maximilian Hell, to the island of Vardø off the coast of Northern Norway, where they made astronomical observations and measurements concerning the transit of Venus. When he could not study astronomy, he took the time to study the language of the indigenous Sami people.
In 1770, Sajnovics wrote Demonstratio Idioma Ungarorum et Lapponum idem esse (English: "Examples of Similarities in the Hungarian and Lappic languages") and asked Gellért to contribute his learning from the expedition. While Sajnovics turned his attention to astronomy, Gellért immersed himself further in studying the Finno-Ugric language family. He travelled again to Lapland, but shortly after his return in 1795 he died in Buda.
While not as well known as other language researchers such as Sajnovics, his work is still referenced in linguistic circles.