Sandor Kegl (1862-1920)

 

Sandor Kegl (1862-1920) was an outstanding figure of Iranian Studies in Hungary and the first Hungarian university professor of Persian language and literary history. He also learned many languages. To the astonishment of his professors, already at high school he read all literature in the original--Latin, Greek. German, English, French, Italian--languages, AND in the following four years he perfectly acquired Russian, Dutch, Danish, Swedish, Spanish and Portuguese! After the main European languages, he turned to the Oriental ones, and mastered Turkish, Persian, Arabic and Sanskrit. He kept learning languages all his life: he learned a number of other Iranian and Indian languages, living and dead Scandinavian dialects, AND during WWI he even learned Chuvash and Mordvin from the Russian captive soldiers of the Russian army working on his estate. His private library collection of 11,000 books is now the property of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. riowang.blogspot.com/2010/10/man-with-cat.html