Otto von Sadovszky

Otto J. von Sadovszky
Born Otto Joseph von Sadovszky
July 3, 1925
Hungary
Died May 12, 2004 (aged 78)
Orange, California
Nationality American
Other names Otto Joseph Rudolf Irene von Sadovszky
Ethnicity Hungarian
Education UC Berkeley, UCLA
Occupation professor, anthropologist
Years active 1971-1994
Employer Cal State Fullerton
Known for Cal-Ugrian theory
Notable work The discovery of California: a Cal-Ugrian comparative study[1]


Otto J. von Sadovszky (July 3, 1925 – May 12, 2004) was a Hungarian American anthropologist[2] who worked at California State University, Fullerton in southern California for most of his career until his retirement. He is best known for his linguistic work attempting to link Native American languages of California to languages spoken in Siberia.

Personal life and education

Sadovszky was born in Hungary on July 3, 1925 and grew to maturity there during World War II.[3] He and his wife Maria raised two children.

Sadovszky received his Ph.L. at Collegium Aloysianum in Italy.

After leaving Europe for the United States to study Sanskrit at UC Berkeley he met a graduate student in linguistics who was studying Miwok, and Sadovszky found that he could understand many of the terms from Miwok, a language of the Penutian group, despite having no training in it, due to the familiarity of many of the terms to Uralic languages from central Siberia he had studied earlier in Europe which were related to his native Hungarian. Sadovszky moved to Los Angeles to continue his graduate studies at UCLA.[2]

Academic career

Sadovszky taught in Germany, and in the U.S. at UC Berkeley, UCLA, and the University of Nevada, Reno before joining the Cal State Fullerton in Orange County south of Los Angeles in 1971. He continued working there until his retirement in 1994, even after achieving professor emeritus status in 1991.[3]

During his tenure as professor of anthropology at CSUF he claimed to have proven that almost 80 percent of the languages spoken by 19 Indian tribes in California and two nations in Siberia are related. This became known as the Cal-Ugrian Theory.[3]

Cal-Ugrian theory

Sadovszky elaborates the Cal-Ugrian theory in his book.[1] The theory describes the relationship between Native American languages in California and languages spoken in Siberia which according to Sadovszky is based on more than 10,000 different words and grammatical traits. The Indian languages were or are spoken in an area along the Northern California coast from Bodega Bay to Big Sur[4] as well as along the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers, and by 6,000 Mansi and 17,000 Khanty, east of the Urals.[2]

One claim of Sadovszky's theory is that the ancestors of some California tribes arrived only 3,000 years ago, which is much more recently than the origin of most tribes in the Americas which according to the generally accepted theory regarding the settlement of the Americas date their original migrations to around 20,000 years ago across the Bering Strait. In contrast, the migration around 1,000 B.C.E. would have occurred from the Ob river delta across the Arctic Ocean in summer months and down the American coast.[5]

Criticism The Cal-Ugrian theory was not well accepted in the United States, with some linguists noting that he was not trained in comparative linguistics although he had done some fieldwork among California Indians. As a result, his book was published abroad, and the upshot was that he gained a reputation for his knowledge of Indo-European and Uralic languages but more so in Europe than in the United States. Evidence for a relatively recent marine migration is very limited, but Sadovszky claims that archaeological and other evidence back up the linguistic evidence of his theory but so far there has been little interest in further research in this area.

Selected works

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Von Sadovszky, Otto (1996). The discovery of California: a Cal-Ugrian comparative study. ISTOR 3. Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó. ISBN 9789630566308. Retrieved 2014-12-01.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 http://www.fullerton.edu/emeriti/_resources/pdfs/tributes/von%20Sadovszky%20Otto%20Tribute.pdf
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 "Emeritus Professor Otto J. Sadovszky Dies". Calstate Fullerton.edu. May 17, 2004. Archived from the original on 2012-06-28. Retrieved 2014-11-30.
  4. ↑ Sadovszky, Otto (November 1984). "The Discovery of California: Breaking the Silence of the Siberia to America Migrators". Magtudin.org. Magyarságtudományi Intézet (Institute Of Hungarian Studies). Archived from the original on 2011-07-27. Retrieved 2014-11-27.
  5. ↑ Billiter, Bill (January 1, 1985). "3,000-Year-Old Connection Claimed : Siberia Tie to California Tribes Cited". Los Angeles Times (Los Angeles). Archived from the original on 2014-11-28. Retrieved 2014-11-29.