Rohonc Codex

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The Rohonc Codex (pronounce like 'ro-honts') is a set of writings in an unknown writing system. Its official Hungarian name is Rohonci-kódex, literally "codex from Rohonc." Another popular spelling is Rohonczi Codex, which reflects the old Hungarian orthography that was reformed in the first half of the 20th century. This spelling has widely spread on-line, due probably to the book of V. Enăchiuc (see Bibliography below).

1 History
2 Location
3 Features
4 Language and script
5 Translation attempts
6 Bibliography
7 See also
8 External links

[edit] History

The codex was named after the city of Rohonc, in Western Hungary (now Rechnitz, Austria), where it was kept until 1838, when it was donated to the Hungarian Academy of Sciences by Gusztáv Batthyány, a Hungarian count, together with his entire library.

The origin of the codex is uncertain. Possible trace of its past may be an entry in the 1743 catalogue of the Batthyánys' Rohonc library, which says "Magyar imádságok, volumen I. in 12.", that is, Hungarian prayers in one volume, size duodecimo. The size and the assumable content agree with those of the codex, but this is all information given in the catalogue, so it may only be a hint. (See Jerney 1844, and Némäti 1892 in the Bibliography.)

The codex was studied by the Hungarian scholar Ferenc Toldy around 1840, and later by Pál Hunfalvy, but with no result. It was also examined by the Austrian paleography expert Dr. Mahl in vain. Josef Jireček and his son, Konstantin Josef Jireček, both university professors in Prague, studied 32 pages of the codex in 1884-85 without success. In 1885 the codex was also sent to a German researcher, Bernhard Jülg, a professor at the Innsbruck University, but he was not able to decipher it either. Mihály Munkácsy, the celebrated Hungarian painter, took the codex with him to Paris in the years 1890-92 to study it, but this also yielded no result.

The majority of Hungarian scholars take the codex to be a hoax of Sámuel Literáti Nemes (1796–1842), Transylvanian-Hungarian antiquarian, co-founder of the National Széchényi Library in Budapest, infamous for many historical forgeries (made mostly in the 1830's) which even deceived some of the most renowned Hungarian scholars of the time. This opinion goes back as far as 1866, to Károly Szabó (1824-1890), Hungarian historian. (See the Bibliograhy below "Of the Old Hun-Székely Writing System".) This opinion is also held by Fejérpataky (1878), and Pintér (1930). Béla Tóth (1899) and Csaba Csapodi (1973) mention this opinion as probable. (For their titles, see the Bibliography below.)

[edit] Location

Magyar Tudományos Akadémia (Hungarian Academy of Sciences).

Call number: K 114
Old call number: Magyar Codex 12^o 1.

A very special permission is needed for studying the codex. However, a microfilm copy is available:

Call number: MF 1173/II.

[edit] Features

An illustration

The codex has 448 paper pages (12x10 cm), each one having between 9 and 14 rows of symbols, which may or may not be letters. Besides the text, there are 87 illustrations that include religious, laic, and military scenes. The crude illustrations seem to indicate an environment where Christian, pagan, and Muslim religions coexist, as the symbols of the cross, crescent, and sun/swastika are all present.

The number of symbols used in the codex is about ten times higher than any known alphabet, but some symbols are used rarely, so the symbols in the codex might not be an alphabet, but a syllabary, or something like Chinese characters. The justification of the right margin would seem to imply the symbols were transcribed from right to left.

Study of the paper on which the codex is written shows that it is probably a Venetian paper made in the 1530s. However, it may simply have been transcribed from an earlier source, or the paper could have been used long after it was produced.

[edit] Language and script

The language in which it is written is unknown. Although Hungarian, Dacian, early Romanian or Cuman, even Hindi (Brahmi) have been proposed, there is nothing that could indicate what language it is.

Those who claim the codex's Hungarian authenticity, either assume that it is a paleo-Hungarian script, or try to find resemblances to the Old Hungarian script, that is Hungarian (Székely) runes ("rovásírás"). According to others, in the Dobruja region in Romania similar characters or symbols are engraved in Scythian monk caves. Still others tried to find resemblance to the letters of the Greek charter of the Veszprémvölgy Nunnery (Hungary). Another claims it to be a version of the Brahmi script.

An attempt to list the symbols of the codex was first made by Kálmán Némäti (Némäti, 1889 & 1892).

Systematic research of the symbols was first done by Ottó Gyürk, who examined repeated sequences to find the direction of writing (he argues for RLTB, pages also going right-to-left), and identified numbers in the text (Gyürk, 1970). His later remarks suggest that he also has many unpublished conjectures, based on a large amount of statistical data (Gyürk, 1996).

Miklós Locsmándy did some computer-based research on the text in the mid-90's. He confirmed the published findings of Gyürk, adding several others. He claimed the symbol "i" to be a sentence delimiter (but also the symbol of 11 (eleven), and possibly also a place value delimiter in numbers). He studied the diacriticals of the symbols (mostly dots), but found no order. As he could see no traces of case endings (which are typically characteristic to the Hungarian language), he assumed that the text was probably in a language different from Hungarian. He could not prove that the codex is not a hoax; however, seeing the regularities of the text, he denied that it was pure gibberish. (Locsmándy, 2004-2005)

[edit] Translation attempts

Attila Nyíri of Hungary proposed a solution after studying two pages of the codex. He simply turned the codex upside down, then took the letters (usually) most similar to the symbols. However, he sometimes transliterated the same symbol with different letters, and vice versa, the same letter was decoded from several symbols. He even had to rearrange the order of the letters to produce words. The text, if taken as meaningful, is of religious, perhaps liturgical character. His solution was published in Theologiai Szemle, 39 (1996), pp. 91-98.

Its beginning: Eljött az Istened. Száll az Úr. Ó. Vannak a szent angyalok. Azok. Ó. -- Your God has come. The Lord flies. Oh. There are the holy angels. Them. Oh.

A translation has been attempted by Romanian philologist Viorica Enăchiuc, but the language (that ought to be Vulgar Latin or some kind of early Romanian) does not resemble Romanian. The alleged translation indicates that it is a history of the Blaki (Vlachs) people in their fights against Cumans and Pechenegs.

Solrgco zicjra naprzi olto co sesvil cas - O Sun of the live let write what span the time is the beginning chapter (p224) transligaturized in order RLBT.

Another alleged solution was made by the Indian M K Singh,. His claim is that the codex is written LRTB with a regional variant of the Brahmi script which he can read. He transliterated the first 24 pages of the codex to get a Hindi text which was translated to Hungarian. His solution is mostly like the beginning of an apocryphal gospel (previously unknown), with a meditative prologue, then going on to the infancy narrative of Jesus. His results were published in Turán, 2004/6 = 2005/1, pages 12-40.

According to Mahesh Kumar Singh, the upper two rows of page 1 go like: he bhagwan log bahoot garib yahan bimar aur bhookhe hai / inko itni sakti aur himmat do taki ye apne karmo ko pura kar sake (Hungarian: Óh, Istenem! Itt a nép nagyon szegény, beteg és szűkölködik, ezért adj nekik elegendő tehetséget és erőt, hogy kielégíthessék a szükségleteiket! -- English: Oh, my God! Here the people is very poor, ill and starving, therefore give them sufficient potency and power that they may satisfy their needs.)

None of these solutions has widespread acceptance among the acedemic community.

A sample from Attila Nyíri's attempt

The cover of V. Enăchiuc's book

A sample from Mahesh Kumar Singh's attempt

[edit] Bibliography

In chronological order

JERNEY, János: Némi világosítások az ismeretlen jellemű rohonczi írott könyvre [Some Enlightenments Concerning the Rohonc Manuscript Book of Unknown Character], Tudománytár, 8 (új f.), 1844. Vol 15., Book 1., 25–36. (Hungarian)
TOLDY, Ferenc: A magyar nemzeti irodalom története [The History of the Literature of the Hungarian Nation], Pest, 1851. Vol. 1, p. 28. (Hungarian)
SZABÓ, Károly: A régi hun-székely írásról [Of the Old Hun-Székely Writing System], Budapesti Szemle 6 (1866), 123-124. (Hungarian)
FEJÉRPATAKY, László: Irodalmunk az Árpádok korában [Our Literature in the Age of the Árpáds (10-13th century)], Budapest, 1878. p. 3. (Hungarian)
NÉMÄTI, Kálmán: A Rohonczi Codex Ábéczéje [The Alphabet of the Rohonc Codex], Magyar Nevelő, 1889. (Hungarian)
NÉMÄTI, Kálmán: Rohonczi Codex Tantétel [Rohonc Codex Doctrine], Budapest, 1892. (Hungarian)
TÓTH, Béla: Magyar ritkaságok (Curiosa Hungarica) [Hungarian Rarities], Budapest, Athenaeum, 1899, pp. 18-20. (2nd, enlarged edition: 1907, pp. 20-22.), reprint: Budapest, Laude Kiadó, 1998 (ISBN 963-9120-16-2); Budapest, Anno, 2004 (ISBN 963-375-277-9) (Hungarian)
PINTÉR, Jenő: ~ magyar irodalomtörténete [Jenő Pintér's History of Hungarian Literature], Budapest, 1930 (vol. 1.) - 1941 (vol. 8.). Volume 1, p. 43., and pp. 724-725. (Hungarian)
GYÜRK, Ottó: Megfejthető-e a Rohonci-kódex? [Can the Rohonc Codex Be Solved?], Élet és Tudomány 25 (1970), pages 1923-1924. (Hungarian)
The official library description of the manuscript (Csapodi, 1973)

CSAPODI, Csaba: A "Magyar Codexek" elnevezésű gyűjtemény (K 31 - K 114) [The Collection "Hungarian Codices"], Budapest, 1973. (Catalogues of the Manuscript and Old Books Department of the Library of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, vol. 5.), page 109. (Hungarian)
RÉVAY, Zoltán: Titkosírások. Fejezetek a rejtjelezés történetéből [Secret Codes: Chapters from the History of Cryptography], Budapest, Zrínyi Katonai Kiadó, 1978. (ISBN 963-326-256-9) pages 57-59. (Hungarian)
NYÍRI, Attila: Megszólal 150 év után a Rohonci-kódex? [After 150 Years, the Rohonc Codex Starts to Speak?], Theologiai Szemle, 39 (1996), 91-98., re-published in Turán, 2004/4, 85-92. under the title "A Rohonci-kódexről" [About the Rohonc Codex] (Hungarian)
GYÜRK, Ottó: Megszólal a Rohonci-kódex? [Does the Rohonc Codex Really Speak?], Theologiai Szemle, 39 (1996), 380-381. (Hungarian)
ENĂCHIUC, Viorica: Rohonczi Codex: descifrare, transcriere si traducere (Déchiffrement, transcription et traduction), Editura Alcor, 2002 (ISBN 973-8160-07-3) (Romanian-French)
UNGUREANU, Dan: Nu trageti in ambulanta, Observator Cultural, 167 (May 6-12, 2003.) (Romanian; also on-line, see external link below)
Rohonci Kódex (Interlinear publication of folios 1-13 with Latin transliteration of M K Singh's Hindi rendering. Introductory notes and Hungarian translation by László BÁRDI), Turán, 2004/6 = 2005/1, 9-40. (transliterated Hindi, and Hungarian)
LOCSMÁNDY, Miklós: A Rohonci Kódex. Egy rejtélyes középkori írás megfejtési kísérlete [The Rohonc Codex: An Attempt to Decipher a Mysterious Medieval Script], Turán, 2004/6 = 2005/1, 41-58. (Hungarian)
SINGH, M K: Rövid ismertető a brahmi ABC-ről [A Short Introduction to the Brahmi Alphabet], Turán 2005/2-3, 133-138. (Hungarian)
VARGA, Géza: A Rohonczi [sic!] Kódexről -- olvasói levél [About the Rohonc Codex. A letter to the editor], Turán 2005/2-3, 195-197. (Hungarian)
VARGA, Csaba: A Rohonczi [sic!] Kódex M K Singh-féle olvasatának ellenőrzése -- olvasói levél [A Criticism of M K Singh's Rendering of the Rohonc Codex. A letter to the editor], Turán 2005/2-3, 198-202. (Hungarian)