János Sajnovics

He became a pupil of the astronomer and mathematician Maximilian Hell.

When Hell planned an expedition to observe the transit of Venus in Vardø, northern Norway of June 1769, he took Sajnovics with him.

[1] Hell had heard that the Hungarian and Lapp (Sami) languages were related and thought that Sajnovics, as a native Hungarian speaker, would be able to investigate the connection.

Sajnovics published the results of his research in his book Demonstratio idioma Hungarorum et Lapporum idem esse (1770), which was seen as a breakthrough in the study of Uralic languages.

He and Hell were elected members of the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters in 1790.