The 17th-century language reform and the Hungarian medical language

Up to the end of the sixteenth century, the language of science in Hungary had been Latin. Conscious care about the Hungarian language only started in the first half of the seventeenth century. The credit for pioneering is due to Albert Szenczi Molnár who, in his grammars and dictionaries, started Hungarianising the language of science. Later, in the mid-seventeenth century, a kind of language cultivation movement began to take shape in Transylvania. An eminent figure of that movement was István Geleji Katona, a Calvinist bishop of Transylvania, who created a number of new words and also discussed the principles of the creation of new words. In the development of specialised scientific terminologies of Hungarian, János Apáczai Csere also had a great share: he proposed a number of Hungarian terms for scientific concepts in his 'Magyar encyclopaedia' (A Hungarian Encyclopaedia, 1653) and 'Magyar logikácska' (Concise Hungarian Logic, 1654). From the point of view of medical language, the contribution of Ferenc Pápai Páriz (Pax Corporis) is also significant. The paper discusses the 'language reform' of that period: its European roots, its difficulties, methods, and results, with special emphasis on the Hungarian medical language.