ALBERT SZENCZI MOLNÁRS HYMNS AND STANDARD LITERARY HUNGARIAN

This paper first summarizes Szenczi Molnár's activities in linguistics and philology (his dictionary, his grammar, his hymn book, his emendation of Gáspár Károli's translation of the Bible, and his own translation of Calvin's Institutio). Then, a definition of 'literary language' is provided, with reference to the tenets of the Linguistics Circle of Prague concerning the plurifunctionalism of linguistic devices and their intellectualization as two prerequisites of the emergence of a literary language. After that, it is explored to what extent Szenczi Molnár's hymns served the emergence of Standard Literary Hungarian. How these hymns were written (translated) and to what extent they went into general use is discussed next. The reason for their popularity is found in their richness of content, variety and high quality of style, as well as in their well-constructed rhythm. Finally, the paper discusses the manner in which the phonological, morphological, and syntactic features of the hymns, the differentiation of the linguistic devices involved and the creation of tools of high-standard reasoning contributed to the emergence of Standard Literary Hungarian.