Sándor, Klára. 2014. A székely írás nyomában ('On the Tracks of the Székely Script'). Budapest: Typotext. 353 pp.

Peter Sherwood

doi:10.5195/ahea.2015.203

Abstract

Sándor, Klára. 2014. A székely írás nyomában ('On the Tracks of the Székely Script'). Budapest: Typotext. 353 pp. Reviewed by Peter Sherwood, László Birinyi, Sr., Distinguished Professor of Hungarian Language and Culture (Emeritus), University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Highlights

Reviewed by Peter Sherwood, László Birinyi, Sr., Distinguished Professor of Hungarian Language and Culture (Emeritus), University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
The few undisputed facts about the Székelys (Szeklers/Széklers/Sekels in German and sometimes in English, Secui in Romanian, and Siculi in Latin) are soon told. This Hungarian-speaking subgroup of the Hungarians, with its own history and a somewhat distinct ethnic identity, today numbers some 500,000 to 600,000 people concentrated on the western side of the Carpathian Mountains in Romanian Transylvania, mostly in the counties of Hargita/Harghita, Kovászna/Covasna, and central and eastern Maros/Mureș
Crude conjectures and formulations like these are misguided and misleading, so that in the book's early parts Sándor has much ground-clearing to do. She first explains why she has chosen "Székely Script" for her title and that the topic is important because the only indisputable primary examples of these texts come from the Székely region and, since they are written in Hungarian, they form a vital part of the Hungarian heritage; she castigates those

Summary

Introduction

Reviewed by Peter Sherwood, László Birinyi, Sr., Distinguished Professor of Hungarian Language and Culture (Emeritus), University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. In the present scholarly yet eminently readable and notably even-handed introduction to the intriguing Székely runiform script, Turkologist and sociolinguist Klára Sándor of Szeged University follows the principles established in her previous study, Nyelvrokonság és hunhagyomány.

Results

Conclusion