Lajos Ligeti

He studied classical languages, but concentrated on Turkish and Hungarian philology at Budapest University under both Gyula Németh and Zoltán Gombocz, obtaining his doctorate in 1925.

He spent three years on a scholarship in post-doctoral research in Paris where he studied Chinese under Henri Maspero, Tibetan under Jacques Bacot, and Mongolian and Inner Asian languages under Paul Pelliot, one of the three students, the others being Denis Sinor and Francis Cleaves who carried on Pelliot's work in Mongolian studies, and his closest disciple.

[1] From 1928 to 1930 he engaged in field research in Inner Mongolia, and, while staying in lamaseries, mastered Chakhar, Kharchin and Dagur, while collecting extensive sources in manuscript.

In 1940 he assumed the chair of Inner Asian Studies at Budapest, university, where he introduced coursework on Mongolian, Tibetan and Manchu.

Though much was lost in the upheavals of World War Two, he managed to conserve important texts in old Mongolian, Manchu, Tibetan and Chinese, which he later gave to the Hungarian Academy.