Matthias Alexander Castrén Matthias Alexander Matt hias Alexander Castrén (1813–1852) was by far the most signifi cant Finn- ish linguist of the 19th century. In addition to being a linguist he was also a multidisciplinary scholar, equally versatile in the fi elds of ethnography, folk- lore, mythology, archaeology, history, and human geography. He left behind a huge corpus of fi eld data, collected by himself during prolonged expeditions to Karelia, Lapland, Arctic Russia, and Siberia between 1838 and 1849. During the short periods of time Castrén spent in an academic environment, he had litt le opportunity to synthesize his collections, a situation aggravated by his rapidly progressing and ultimately fatal illness. Th erefore, a major part of his scholarly heritage remained unpublished when he died. Th e Khanty grammar is one of the few materials Castrén was able to pub- lish himself. He collected the material over the course of a few weeks in the summer of 1845 in the Irtyš and Surgut areas, where the southern and eastern dialects of Khanty were spoken. During these weeks, he outlined the Khanty grammar in Swedish and his companion Johan Reinhold Bergstadi translated it into German. Aft er Castrén returned from his journey in 1849, he was able to check the German translation and oversee the printing of the book. In this critical edition, most of the commentary is made based on the print- ed book, which is here translated into English. Th ere are only minor comments on the diff erences between the printed version and the manuscript, as Castrén seemingly had control over the printing process, and thus the printed version can be regarded as his own synthesis of the grammatical and lexical notes. Th e Ostiacica commentaries are made on the basis of best modern knowledge of Khanty. In this volume, a brief modern grammar of Khanty is also presented, focusing on the Irtyš and Surgut dialects. O Edited by Ulla-Maija Forsberg 9 789527 262009 〉 isbn 978-952-7262-00-9 (print) Manuscripta Castreniana isbn 978-952-7262-01-6 (online) Manuscripta issn 2489-4397 Castreniana Linguistica V hhanti_kannet.inddanti_kannet.indd 1 33.4.2018.4.2018 113:12:193:12:19 Barents Sea Kara Sea Dudinka Central Siberian Novaja Zemlja Plateau M.A. Castrén’s Visits to the Khanty area ska M.A. Castrén’s stops gu Tun in the Khanty area e er c l Lo w Other major cities and settlements i r c i c c t a r (Ob' River) 27th Oct. (8th Nov.) 1843 Enis Obdorsk ej (Salexard) from 28th Oct. (9th Nov.) 1843 Stockholm until Jan. 1844 Arxangel'sk Berëzov Surgut from 2nd half from 1st (13th) Aug. until Helsingfors Toropkova Enisejsk Helsinki of Jan. until at 12th (24th) Sept. 1845 a i.e. Skripunova ° r least 04th (16th) 0 N o from 04th (16th) 6 o e č March 1844 r P until 5th (17th) n Petrozavodsk th Megion Nižnevartovsk er July 1845 Reval n Ural Mountains Ob' D Tallinn v i n St Petersburg a Samarovo Ob' (Xanty-Mansijsk) Lokosovo Vampugol Vyčegda arrived before and Riga left after 25th June ona (6th July) 1845 Tomsk ux Cingaly D S š a y t u Demjanskoe r g I a Vologda va Tobol'sk arrived before and left after Karbina Bronnikovo Vilnius Vjatka (Kirov) 12th (24th) March 1844 & Tver' from 16th (28th) May until Krivoščëkovo Irtyš (Novosibirsk) V 25th May (6th June) 1845 Jaroslavl' o l g Perm' Barnaul Minsk a Tjumen' Moscow Nižnij Ekaterinburg Novgorod Kazan' a Omsk Kam r p l Brjansk o e a Čeljabinsk b Korjakov n g l D Simbirsk l o Semipalatinsk o a T (Pavlodar) (Uljanovsk) V Ufa r n (Semej) o U Kiev (Kyiv) D Voronež Samara Ostiacica Manuscripta Castreniana Linguistica V Matthias Alexander Castrén Ostiacica Edited by Ulla-Maija Forsberg Finno-Ugrian Society Helsinki 2018 Contents Manuscripta Castreniana: 6 A General Preface to the Series by Juha Janhunen Editor’s Foreword 9 Matthias Alexander Castrén: by Ulla-Maija Forsberg Ostiacica Manuscripta Castreniana Short Grammatical Linguistica V 11 Description of Khanty Edited by Ulla-Maija Forsberg by Ulla-Maija Forsberg Finno-Ugrian Society Helsinki 2018 Matthias Alexander Castrén: http://www.sgr.fi/manuscripta/ Attempt at an Ostyak Grammar Editorial Board of the series Manuscripta Castreniana with a Short Word List Ulla-Maija Forsberg, Juha Janhunen, Ildikó Lehtinen, Edited and commentary by Ulla-Maija Forsberg Karina Lukin, Timo Salminen Drawing on the cover by Albert Edelfelt Preface 41 (M.A. Castrén with Khanty informants, published in M.A. Castrén, elämä ja matkustukset, I Phonetics (Sounds) 47 nuorisolle kerrotut, G.W. Edlund, Helsinki 1878), II Morphology 70 photograph Markku Haverinen, National Board of Antiquities, Finland Ostyak Word List 123 Painting on the back by G.D. Budkowski (“Matthias Alexander Castrén”, 1845), photograph National Board of Antiquities, Finland Abbreviations 172 Map on the first endpaper Anna Kurvinen, Timo Salminen, Ulla-Maija Forsberg References 174 Map on the last endpaper Anna Kurvinen, Timo Salminen Layout and cover Anna Kurvinen © Suomalais-Ugrilainen Seura – Société Finno-Ougrienne – Finno-Ugrian Society & the authors isbn 978-952-7262-00-9 (print) isbn 978-952-7262-01-6 (online) issn 2489-4397 Printon Tallinn 2018 Bookstore Tiedekirja Snellmaninkatu 13 FI-00170 Helsinki p. (09/+3589) 635 177 https://www.tiedekirja.fi/ [email protected] Manuscripta Castreniana: A General Preface to the Series Manuscripta Castreniana: A General Preface to the Series Manuscripta Castreniana: Folklore and mythology were discussed by Castrén in a number A General Preface to the Series of public lectures he gave at the Imperial Alexander University in Hel- sinki. Linguistic topics were treated by him in a series of academic dis- sertations, presented between 1839 and 1850. In addition, he authored Matthias Alexander Castrén (1813–1852) was by far the most significant grammatical sketches with vocabularies on Izhma Komi and Meadow Finnish linguist of the 19th century. When he died at the young age Mari, published in Latin in 1844 and 1845, respectively. After his last ex- of 38, he left behind a huge corpus of field data, collected by himself pedition he started working on a new series of German-language aca- during prolonged expeditions to Karelia, Lapland, Arctic Russia and demic grammars to which he gave the general title Nordische Reisen und Siberia from 1838 to 1849. In the short periods of time he spent in an Forschungen. The series was authorized and financed by the Russian academic environment, he was largely occupied by university teach- Imperial Academy of Sciences in St Petersburg, and the first volume, on ing and social activities and had little opportunity to synthesize his Khanty, appeared in 1849. In his remaining two years, Castrén managed collections, a situation aggravated by his rapidly progressing and ul- to complete the manuscript for a second volume, on Samoyedic. timately fatal illness. Therefore, and in spite of his active production With Castrén’s death, however, the future of his grammars was of specialized articles, reviews and travel reports during his lifetime, in danger, and the series would have been discontinued had it not been a major part of his scholarly heritage remained unpublished when he taken up by his colleague Anton Schiefner (1817–1879). From 1852 to died. Ever since, the fate of this legacy has stood in the focus of Finn- 1861, Schiefner rapidly completed the project by editing and publish- ish linguistics. ing, not only the Samoyedic volume, but also five other volumes of In Castrén’s lifetime it was said that he had “written the gram- Castrén’s linguistic field data, as well as a reissue of the Khanty volume. mars of fourteen languages”, but the actual number of separate idioms To these, he added the German editions of five volumes of Castrén’s documented by him is much larger, coming close to thirty. Moreover, lectures and earlier publications, including letters and travelogues, although his main focus was the Samoyedic branch of Uralic, he also which were also being made available in parallel Swedish versions un- recorded several Finno-Ugrian idioms, including varieties of Finnic, der the name Nordiska resor och forskningar, published between 1852 Saamic, Mari, Komi and Khanty, as well as languages and dialects be- and 1870. This 12-volume international series immediately consolidated longing to the Turkic, Mongolic, Tungusic and Yeniseic families. With Castrén’s reputation and has been used as a basic tool of reference ever most of these languages, he was the first to collect any kind of coherent since—even for languages for which more extensive descriptions have grammatical information, which, moreover, was complemented by lexi- subsequently become available. cal collections of varying sizes. Not surprisingly, he is today regarded In spite of the extremely valuable contribution made by Schiefner as the founder of not only Uralic, but also Altaic and Palaeosiberian to Castrén’s legacy, it was almost immediately realized that even more linguistics. An important feature of his approach was that he worked in needed to be done. For one thing, there remained important parts of the framework of a consistent linguistic theory, close to what is today Castrén’s materials that were not included in the series published by known as “basic grammar”. Schiefner. Moreover, Schiefner, who was not a field linguist, occasion- It has to be added, however, that Castrén was not only a lin- ally made mistakes when reading and interpreting Castrén’s handwrit- guist, but a multidisciplinary scholar equally versatile in the fields of ten materials, which were not always in an accessible format. The idea ethnography, folklore, mythology, archaeology, history and human of republishing Castrén’s data in a more complete and correct form was geography.