Preface

János Sylvester's work (c. 1504 - before 1552) is of innovative significance in the development of the Hungarian language approach and the grammatical literature. From the aspect of Hungarian literal and cultural history, it is especially important that Sylvester worked on the improvement of his mother tongue in Erasmus' and Luther's spirit with a scientific exaction. According to our present knowledge, he edited the first systematic Hungarian grammar, Grammatica Hungarolatina, published in this volume.

There is a document known since the 16th century according to which the Hungarian humanist poet, Janus Pannonius, working in the second half of the 15th century, prepared a Latin-Hungarian grammar. Later on, this work was mentioned again and again, and there were some in the 18th century who claimed to have seen Janus Pannonius's grammar with their own eyes. The debate on his possible authorship has gone on for a long time in Hungarian literature. However, no proof has appeared on the basis of which we could conclude that the lost or hidden Latin-Hungarian grammar assigned to Janus Pannonius is not really his work. Based on the available data, we can assume that in the second half of the 18th century specimens of an old bilingual grammar were known which were not those of János Sylvester's Grammatica Hungarolatina. Still, until we have unequivocal proof of an earlier, similar work, we must consider Sylvester the author of the first Hungarian Grammar.

Few details are known of János Sylvester's life. We know exactly from Grammatica Hungarolatina that he was born in Szinérváralja, in East Hungary's Szatmár county (Seini, Rumania). He probably completed his secondary studies in the urban school of the nearby mining city, Nagybánya (Baia Mare, Rumania).

He enrolled in the University of Cracow in 1526, where he met for the first time the numerous manifestations of the language approach of European humanism. As is well-known, the most important works of the different grammatical trends were published one by one in Cracow. Sylvester himself contributed to the editions of grammatical publications, which we will describe later.

Sylvester's first known literary work was issued in Cracow. The Rosarium Celeste Virginis Mariae... includes two Latin poems. The distichs of the first poem tell Virgin Mary's life based on the rhythmical prayers written about Virgin Mary's delights and originating in the Middle Ages. The second poem is the story of Saint Clement of Rome written in Sapphoic lines.

In 1529, Sylvester enrolled in the University of Wittenberg and took lectures from Melanchthon. From 1534 on, he lived in West Hungary, Sárvár, in the house of his patron, Tamás Nádasdy, and taught in the elementary school of the small settlement. He was probably in Wittenberg for the second time at some point between the end of 1534 and the beginning of 1536. This is proven by - among others things - the numerous common features of Grammatica Hungarolatina and the Latin-German grammars widely available there at that time.

Sylvester started to translate the New Testament into Hungarian in the middle of the 1530s. For the printing of the work, Tamás Nádasdy established a workshop in Újsziget, near Sárvár. Grammatica Hungarolatina was its first publication in 1539, a "prestudy" to the great task, the Hungarian New Testament.

Sylvester not only created the first theoretical system of the Hungarian language, but as a translator he also showed how to recreate the sacred texts in his mother tongue keeping in mind the severity of the humanists' Bible criticism. He worked on the grounds of Erasmus's Greek-Latin edition. The greatest result of his linguistic interest is that after the earlier partial translations he was the first to prepare a complete Hungarian New Testament. The work came to light in Sárvár-Újsziget in 1541.

From the aspect of printing history, its special significance is that it is the first book produced in Hungary in the Hungarian language. For Hungarian literary history, it is extremely important that Sylvester wrote a preface to the whole work and to certain parts in Hungarian distichs. After the earlier primitive mother-tongue expression of some lines, these are the first longer, prosodically perfect Hungarian metrical poems of literary value. From the explanations attached to the translation, the discussion titled "Testimony about such verbs (=words) that are not understood in their own contexts (=in their own, first meaning)" is of high value from the viewpoint of critical history. Sylvester here discourses on the metaphoric way of expression; he considers this figurative language the value of the contemporary Hungarian love poetry consisting of flower songs that are textually almost unknown today.

Sylvester embodied the Erasmian idea of the "homo trilinguis". Making use of his skills in sacred languages, he joined the University of Vienna upon Tamás Nádasdy's recommendation. He was a professor of Hebrew from 1543, and Greek from 1546 until 1550. His Latin poems were published: his elegy against the Turks (1544), his poem personalizing Vienna (1546), the epitaph of Queen Anna (Anna Jagello, wife of the Hungarian king, Emperor Ferdinand I) (1548), the lament of Jesus resurrected (about 1550), the lament of faith (1551). There are no other data available about his life and death.

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