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Although the Hungarian language is currently widely acknowledged scientifically and by the Hungarian Academy of Sciences as a member of the Uralic language family, there is a history of other theories from before and after the Uralic connection was established, as well as some fringe theories that continue to deny the connection.
Ármin Vámbéry was a Hungarian traveler, orientalist, and Turkologist. He was the first to put forward a significant alternative origin theory. Vámbéry's first large linguistic work, entitled "Magyar és török-tatár nyelvekbeli szóegyezések" [1] and published in 1869–70, was the casus belli of the "Ugric-Turkic War" (Hungarian : Ugor-török háború), which started as a scientific dispute, but quickly turned into a bitter feud lasting for two decades. In this work, Vámbéry tried to demonstrate, with the help of word comparisons, that as a result of the intermingling of the early Hungarians with Turkic peoples, the Hungarian language gained a distinct dual character as Ugric and Turkic albeit it is Ugric in origin, so he presented a variant of linguistic contact theory.
Vámbéry's work was criticized by Finno-Ugrist József Budenz in "Jelentés Vámbéry Ármin magyar-török szóegyezéséről", published in 1871. Budenz criticised Vámbéry and his work in an aggressive, derogatory style, and questioned Vámbéry's (scientific) honesty and credibility. The historian Henrik Marczali, linguist Károly Pozder, linguist József Thúry, [2] [3] [4] anthropologist Aurél Török, and many other scientists supported Vámbéry. [5]
The Finno-Ugrist Pál Hunfalvy [ de; eo; hu ] widened the front of the "Ugric-Turk War" with his book "Magyarország ethnographiája.", [6] published in 1876. In this book he stresses the very strong connection between language and nation (p. 48.), tries to prove that the Huns were Finno-Ugric (p. 122.), questions the credibility and origin of the Gestas (p. 295.), concludes that the Huns, Bulgars and Avars were Ugric (p. 393.), mentions, that the Jews are more prolific than other peoples, so the quickly growing number of them presents a real menace for the nation (p. 420.), and stresses what an important and eminent role the Germans played in the development of Hungarian culture and economy (p. 424.).
In his work titled "Vámbéry Ármin: A magyarok eredete. Ethnologiai tanulmány.", [7] and published in 1882, Vámbéry went a step further, and presented a newer version of his theory, in which he claimed that the Hungarian nation and language are Turkic in origin, and the Finno-Ugric element in them is a result of later contact and intermingling.
"...I see a compound people in Hungarians, in which not the Finno-Ugric, but the Turkic-Tatar component gives the true core..."
"...a magyarban vegyülék népet látok, a melyben nem finn-ugor, hanem török-tatár elem képezi a tulajdonképeni magvat..." in: Vámbéry Ármin: A magyarok eredete. Ethnologiai tanulmány. Preface. p. VI.
Vámbéry's work was criticized heavily by his Finno-Ugrist opponents. This critique gave rise to the ever-circling myth of the "fish-smelling kinship" and its variants. No one of the authors has ever given the written source/base of this accusation against the Turanist scientists. Turanist scientists did not write such things about the Finno-Ugric peoples, and Vámbéry and his followers mentioned these kins of Hungarians with due respect. In reality it was coined by the Finno-Ugrist Ferdinánd Barna, in his work "Vámbéry Ármin A magyarok eredete czímű műve néhány főbb állításának bírálata." ("Critique of some main statements of Ármin Vámbéry's work, titled 'The origin of Hungarians'.") published in 1884. In this work, Barna called the Finno-Ugric peoples "a petty, fish fat eating people spending their woeful lives with fish- and easel-catching", and tried to give this colorful description of his into Vámbéry's mouth. [8]
Vámbéry held to his scientific theory about the mixed origin of the Hungarian language and people until his death. He considered Hungarian a contact language, more precisely a mixed language, having not just one but two (Finno-Ugric AND Turkic) genetic ancestors. His strongest evidence was the large corpus of ancient Turkish words in Hungarian word stock (300-400 for a minimum, and even more with good alternative Turkic etymologies), [9] and the strong typological similarity of Hungarian and Turkic languages. His Finno-Ugrist opponents strongly rejected not only the fact of such mixing and dual ancestry but even the theoretical possibility of it. Some scientists[ who? ] questioned seriously even the existence of Uralic as a valid language family, and attention turned towards the complex areal relations and interactions of Eurasian languages (Uralic and Altaic languages included). In light of these developments, linguists have started to pay due credit to Vámbéry and his work. [10] [11] [12] [13] [14]
Regardless of faction, both alternative theories debate the direction of linguistic "borrowing," and the model of language evolution. According to alternative theories, the Ugric language family (or the Finno-Ugric or Uralic-Altaic) received common word sets with the help of a traffic language,[ clarification needed ] and the base of this traffic language would have been Hungarian. The alternative theories claim that the important language characteristics the Finno-Ugric theory relies upon only developed much later. The diminutives are one of several such cases. The Uralic and Finnish languages have simple diminutives (-csa/i and -ka/e/i), but both variants can be found in the Hungarian language. However, the Slavic diminutive -ca, and even traces of the diminutives of other languages, like –d and –ny, are also present.
Several different attributes of the Hungarian language can be connected with other languages as well.
Linguist Gábor Bálint de Szentkatolna was the first to systematize and represent the theory of a Kabardian-Hungarian language group. While on his travels to the Caucasus, Szentkatolna noticed that Hungarian appeared to be related to Kabardian. In his book A honfoglalás revíziója ("Revision of the Conquest"), the linguist tries to prove the relation not only from the lingual side but from historical and cultural aspects as well. According to his theory, the Huns did not fully merge with the other nomadic people migrating to Europe, with some of them staying in the Caucasus region, and others returning to the Carpathian Basin. According to his theories, the Huns had two descendants, the Khazars and the Avars. He did not consider the Kabardians—who live in the Caucasus—aboriginals, rather he considered them the direct descendants of the Khazars. He classified both languages as part of the Turanian language family (which is roughly the same as the Uralic-Altaic language family theory today), but considered them unique languages, that did not belong to the Turk language group. He did not exclude the Ugric impact, as he thought that the tribe of the Sabir people who joined Hungarians—mentioned by Purple-born Constantine (szabartoiaszfaloi)—is such a tribe. The most major error in his theory is that he handled Kabardian as a fully isolated language, claiming that it changed very little, ignoring the local linguistic evolution. His work was forgotten after the language war, and the theory was never debated. The last person who engaged with the theory was Pál Sándor in 1903. Sándor issued his writings with the title Magyar és a kabard nyelv viszonya ("Hungarian and Kabardian languages' relation").
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Studies the similarities and concords of geographical names found in the Carpathian Basin and all over the world.
Based on lexical similarities between Hungarian and the Yeniseian languages, it has been argued by Jingyi Gao that the Hungarian language has a Hunnic substratum. The Hunnic language has been theorized to be of Yeniseian origin by some linguists being closely related to Pumpokol and Arin. This theory was picked up by Jingyi Gao who argued that lexical evidence shows that Hungarian has multiple loanwords from a supposedly Yeniseian Hunnic language. The following correspondences have been proposed: [15] [16]
| Hungarian | Ket | Yugh | Pumpokol | Arin | Proto-Yeniseian |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| hegy [hɛɟ] 'mountain' | qaˀj 'mountain' | xaˀj | kónnoŋ (plural form) | *qaˀj | |
| ég 'sky' | es 'sky' | es | eč | eš | *es |
| hó 'snow' | qo 'ice' | xo | *qoga | ||
| apa 'father' | oop 'father' | op | ab | ɨpä | *ob(ǝ) |
| hús 'meat' | iis 'meat' | iis | híte | iži | |
| út 'road' | qɔˀt 'road' | χɔˀt | koat | kut | *qɔˀt |
| tenger 'sea' | tɨŋǝĺ | tɨŋɨlsi | tokardu | *tʰɨŋ(g)ǝl | |
| só 'salt' | tʌˀ 'salt' | čʌˀ | če | t*’ǝgǝ” | |
| has 'belly' | hɨj 'belly' | ||||
| szel- 'cut' | saˀl 'cutting edge' | saˀr 'cutting edge' |
A hypothesis exists in Hungarian and international historiography that relates the Sumerians to the Hungarians. According to it, the Sumerian and Hungarian languages would be related and the ancestors of both peoples would have had contact in the past and share a common origin. This leaves a huge temporal gap and suggests a very extensive origin for the speakers of Uralic languages (as their Urheimat is generally believed to be at the west of the Ural Mountains). Most of its supporters deny a direct linguistic relationship between Hungarian and the other Finno-Ugric languages. [17]
The hypothesis had more popularity among Sumerologists in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Nowadays, it is mostly dismissed, although it is acknowledged that Sumerian is an agglutinative language, like the Hungarian, Turkish and Finnish languages [18] and regarding linguistic structure resembles these and some Caucasian languages; however, in vocabulary, grammar, and syntax Sumerian still stands alone and seems to be unrelated to any other language, living or dead. [19]
Another theory that received attention was the Etruscan-Hungarian theory, based on the research of Italian linguist Mario Alinei. Rather than speaking about an Etruscan-Hungarian language relation, Alinei claims that Etruscan belongs to the Aryan family, and concludes that its closest relative is Hungarian. Alinei's proposal has been rejected by Etruscan experts such as Giulio M. Facchetti, [20] Finno-Ugric experts such as Angela Marcantonio, [21] and Hungarian historical linguists such as Bela Brogyanyi. [22]
The root theory is a system of internal reconstruction of Hungarian and proposes an analysis similar to the triconsonantal roots found in the Semitic languages but based mainly on pairs of two consonants.
The system was first proposed by Gergely Czuczor and János Fogarasi in their six-volume dictionary of Hungarian, published between 1861 and 1874. The integrated word bush system runs through the language organically. Later supporters of the root theory claim that official Hungarian linguistics denies this simple fact, ignore the method of inner reconstruction and ignores the Czuczor-Fogarasi dictionary. The methodology, however, is considered unscientific by a wide range of academics.
The fragments of these bush systems are further alleged to be found also in other languages in part or ruins, but none of them as whole as in Hungarian. Loan words, taken from other languages either took root and were pulled into the same meaning-circle as the corresponding root, were only used in a specific field or were spilled out from the language. These bush systems—as the result of loaning larger amounts of words, and the fading meaning of the word roots, are broken in the majority of the languages. Because of the logical buildup of the word bushes (self-similarity, natural forms), the Hungarian language either developed together with an artificial language, or–respecting the iconic pictures, hiding in the roots–it developed as the human mind advanced. According to this theory, the clearest form of ancient language was preserved in the language that we call Hungarian today. They assume that ancient Hungarians were the transmitters, rather than the receivers, of this knowledge and its words, or they least adopted it extremely successfully. Therefore, this theory requires proto-Hungarians to have lived in and around the Carpathian Basin longer than is normally accepted.
The root theory has almost since its introduction been criticized for its incompatibility with most other research on Hungarian etymology, particularly with loanword studies, in proposing root etymologies even for relatively recent loanwords acquired from the Slavic, Romance and Germanic languages. [23]
Critics of the root theory point out that the theory is not scientifically provable. Critics claim[ who? ] that the root system is not a special, new, or newly founded linguistic attribute, but a "linguistic constant", which can be found in almost every language.[ citation needed ] Continuing, critics point out that it is impossible to not exclude the possibility of the import of the root system, because the Hungarian language does have root composing trends but in an even more ancient form.
According to some critics, such as Károly Rédei fe., the alternative theories feast on the "utopian national identity." Official linguistics uses the term "utopian linguist" for scientists denying the Finno-Ugric relation of the Hungarian language. Rédei claims that the introduction of Hungarian Finno-Ugric origin was met with disapproval because of the theory's clear anti-national message and political purpose. [24]
According to the Finno-Ugric theory, the words relatable to Finno-Ugric languages are more basic, and belong to a more primitive meaning circle, than the words stemming from Turkic languages. The mere 500 Finno-Ugric words from the Hungarian language can only form a fragment of a basic word set, and the majority lend themselves to a Turkic, Indo-European or other non-Finno-Ugric origins.
Finno-Ugric is a traditional linguistic grouping of all languages in the Uralic language family except for the Samoyedic languages. Its once commonly accepted status as a subfamily of Uralic is based on criteria formulated in the 19th century and is criticized by some contemporary linguists such as Tapani Salminen and Ante Aikio. The three most spoken Uralic languages, Hungarian, Finnish, and Estonian, are all included in Finno-Ugric.
Hungarian, or Magyar, is a Uralic language of the Ugric branch spoken in Hungary and parts of several neighboring countries. It is the official language of Hungary and one of the 24 official languages of the European Union. Outside Hungary, it is also spoken by Hungarian communities in southern Slovakia, western Ukraine (Transcarpathia), central and western Romania (Transylvania), northern Serbia (Vojvodina), northern Croatia, northeastern Slovenia (Prekmurje), and eastern Austria (Burgenland).
The Uralic languages, sometimes called the Uralian languages, are spoken predominantly in Europe and North Asia. The Uralic languages with the most native speakers are Hungarian, Finnish, and Estonian. Other languages with speakers above 100,000 are Erzya, Moksha, Mari, Udmurt and Komi spoken in the European parts of the Russian Federation. Still smaller minority languages are Sámi languages of the northern Fennoscandia; other members of the Finnic languages, ranging from Livonian in northern Latvia to Karelian in northwesternmost Russia; and the Samoyedic languages, Mansi and Khanty spoken in Western Siberia.
Ural-Altaic, Uralo-Altaic, Uraltaic, or Turanic is a linguistic convergence zone and abandoned language-family proposal uniting the Uralic and the Altaic languages. It is now generally agreed that even the Altaic languages do not share a common descent: the similarities between Turkic, Mongolic and Tungusic are better explained by diffusion and borrowing. Just as in Altaic, the internal structure of the Uralic family has been debated since the family was first proposed. Doubts about the validity of most or all of the proposed higher-order Uralic branchings are becoming more common. The term continues to be used for the central Eurasian typological, grammatical and lexical convergence zone.
The Hunnic language, or Hunnish, was the language spoken by Huns in the Hunnic Empire, a heterogeneous, multi-ethnic tribal confederation which invaded Eastern and Central Europe, and ruled most of Pannonian Eastern Europe, during the 4th and 5th centuries CE. A variety of languages were spoken within the Hun Empire. A contemporary report by Priscus has that Hunnish was spoken alongside Gothic and the languages of other tribes subjugated by the Huns.
Hungarian prehistory spans the period of history of the Hungarian people, or Magyars, which started with the separation of the Hungarian language from other Finno-Ugric or Ugric languages around 800 BC, and ended with the Hungarian conquest of the Carpathian Basin around 895 AD. Based on the earliest records of the Magyars in Byzantine, Western European, and Hungarian chronicles, scholars considered them for centuries to have been the descendants of the ancient Scythians and Huns. This historiographical tradition disappeared from mainstream history after the realization of similarities between the Hungarian language and the Uralic languages in the late 18th century. Thereafter, linguistics became the principal source of the study of the Hungarians' ethnogenesis. In addition, chronicles written between the 9th and 15th centuries, the results of archaeological research and folklore analogies provide information on the Magyars' early history. After the 2000s, archaeological research aimed at exploring the early history of the Hungarians resumed in the Ural Mountains region. Today, these efforts are regularly supplemented with archaeogenetic studies. In addition to linguistics, archaeology, and archaeogenetics, the re-evaluation of well-known written sources has also begun. Together, these fields of study may provide new information regarding the origins of the Hungarian people.
Turanism, also known as pan-Turanism or pan-Turanianism, is a pan-nationalist political movement built around pseudoscientific claims of biological and linguistic connections between various ethnic groups of Eurasia. It revolves around the abandoned proposal of a Ural-Altaic language family, which hypothesizes that the Turkic, Mongolic, Tungusic, and Uralic peoples share Inner and Central Asian origins and therefore close cultural, ethnic, and linguistic bonds. Supporters of Turanism propose political unity among these groups, chiefly to oppose the cultural and political influences of the Indo-Europeans of Europe and South Asia, as well as the Sino-Tibetans of East Asia. The movement emerged in the 19th century to counter pan-nationalist ideologies such as pan-Germanism, and built upon the ideas of pan-Slavism.
Indo-Uralic is a highly controversial linguistic hypothesis proposing a genealogical family consisting of Indo-European and Uralic.
Uralo-Siberian is a hypothetical language family consisting of Uralic, Yukaghir, and Eskaleut. It was proposed in 1998 by Michael Fortescue, an expert in Eskaleut and Chukotko-Kamchatkan, in his book Language Relations across Bering Strait. Some have attempted to include Nivkh in Uralo-Siberian. Until 2011, it also included Chukotko-Kamchatkan. However, after 2011 Fortescue only included Uralic, Yukaghir and Eskaleut in the theory, although he argued that Uralo-Siberian languages have influenced Chukotko-Kamchatkan.
Ármin Vámbéry, also known as Arminius Vámbéry, was a Hungarian Turkologist and traveller.
Historically, the Ugrians or Ugors were the ancestors of the Khanty and Mansi people of the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug of Russia. The name is sometimes also used in a modern context as a cover term for these two peoples, formerly called "Ugrian Finns".
The Ob-Ugric languages are a commonly proposed branch of the Uralic languages, grouping together the Khanty (Ostyak) and Mansi (Vogul) languages. Both languages are split into numerous and highly divergent dialects, more accurately referred to as languages. The Ob-Ugric languages and Hungarian comprise the proposed Ugric branch of the Uralic language family.
Hungarian mythology includes the myths, legends, folk tales, fairy tales and gods of the Hungarians.
Hungarian is a Uralic language of the Ugric group. It has been spoken in the region of modern-day Hungary since the Hungarian conquest of the Carpathian Basin in the late 9th century.
The Magyar or Hungarian tribes or Hungarian clans were the fundamental political units within whose framework the Hungarians (Magyars) lived, before the Hungarian conquest of the Carpathian Basin and the subsequent establishment of the Principality of Hungary.
Hungarian Turanism is a diverse Turanist phenomenon that revolves around an identification or association of Hungarian history and people with the histories and peoples of Central Asia, Inner Asia or the Ural region. It includes many different conceptions and served as the guiding principle of many political movements. It was most lively in the second half of the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century.
Gyula is a Hungarian male given name of presumably Turkic origin. Its meaning is 'torch'. It was revived in the 19th century when it was mistakenly identified with the Latin name Julius.
Sino-Uralic or Sino-Finnic is a long-range linguistic proposal that links the Sinitic languages (Chinese) and the Uralic languages. Sino-Uralic is proposed as an alternative to the Sino-Tibetan family and is at odds with mainstream comparative linguistics, which firmly includes the Sinitic languages in the Sino-Tibetan family. The proposal has been brought forward by the Chinese linguist Jingyi Gao, based on works by 19th century linguists such as Karl August Hermann. However, connections with the Uralic and other language families are generally seen as speculative.
Josef Budenz was a German comparative linguist specializing in Finno-Ugric who researched the origins of the Hungarian language.
Gábor Bálint de Szentkatolnai was a Hungarian linguist, Esperantist, Orientalist, and traveller. He explored Central Asia and the Far East with expeditions led by Hungarian nobles. Balint supported the idea that Hungarian was a Turanian language and did not accept Finno-Ugric origins.
