Zoltán Balla

* Ipolyság, 1909. Mar. 27. – † ibid. 1988. May. 19. / physician, phonetic researcher ; ; He completed high school in his hometown and his medical studies (1928–1933) in Prague. As a medical student, his interest also extended to the mechanism of sound formation. From 1934 he was a physician in Ipolyság and its surroundings, and in addition to his internal medicine and general practice, he investigated the conditions for the development of structural degenerative diseases and cancer. He was constantly involved in phonetics, and made numerous oscillograms during his experiments. – He began publishing in 1944, and by 1946 two books had been published. In the first (Lesz-e kiút...) he proposed an international writing reform to promote mutual human understanding. In the second, (The Logic of Visual Thinking), he criticized traditional phonetics and, with an epistemological foundation, explained his assumptions about the acoustic structure of speech sounds. He considered speech sounds and sounds produced by physical bodies to be of the same nature and geometric formation, and considered visuality to be a fundamental element of human thinking. His innovative ideas were rejected by the conservative critics of the time (Ádám Petz, Antal Schütz), and his phonetic work was not recommended for publication by the Hungarian Iván Fónagy and the Slovak Štefan Peciar in 1957. However, Ludovít Novák, in his opinion written in 1961, assessed the work as a significant achievement and recommended its publication in a world language. B. gave a lecture on his hypotheses at the phonetics department of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences in 1986, the text of which was published in the ISZ (New Paths in Phonetics, 1993/7–8). His further studies: The Significance of Acoustic Examination of Speech Sounds in Universal Signology and Interpretation, or Hermeneutics(ISZ 1995/4), The Significance of Phonetic Examinations in the History of Writing(School Culture 1996/3 and ISZ 1996/6). His phonetic and philosophical views were positively evaluated by a Canadian Hungarian musicologist of Slovak origin, and he incorporated them into his work. ; ; Works: Will There Be a Way Out of the General Cultural Crisis?, Bp. 1945, The Logic of Contemplative Thinking, ibid. 1946. ; ; Literature: Ludovít Novák: Posudok o diele MUDr. Zoltána Ballu, kz., 1961. Nov. 17., Dümmerth Dezső: B. Z.'s work on the perspective of thought. = Yearbook of the Ipolysági Gymnasium 1993, Dr. Laszlo Jablanczay: Music its beneficial and harmful effects, Hamilton [Canada] 1990. ;

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