The Old Hungarian script (Hungarian: rovásírás, "Rovas script", "Rovash script") is an alphabeticwriting system used for writing the Hungarian language. Today Hungarian is predominantly written using the Latin-based Hungarian alphabet, but the Old Hungarian script is still in use in some communities. The term "old" refers to the historical priority of the script compared with the Latin-based one.[1] The Old Hungarian script is a child system of the Old Turkic alphabet.
Hungarian is a Finno-Ugric language spoken in Hungary and parts of several neighbouring 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 communities of Hungarians in the countries that today make up Slovakia, western Ukraine (Subcarpathia), central and western Romania (Transylvania), northern Serbia (Vojvodina), northern Croatia and northern Slovenia. It is also spoken by Hungarian diaspora communities worldwide, especially in North America and Israel. Like Finnish and Estonian, Hungarian belongs to the Uralic language family. With 13 million speakers, it is the family's largest member by number of speakers.
An alphabet is a standard set of letters that represent the phonemes of any spoken language it is used to write. This is in contrast to other types of writing systems, such as syllabaries and logographic systems.
A writing system is any conventional method of visually representing verbal communication. While both writing and speech are useful in conveying messages, writing differs in also being a reliable form of information storage and transfer. The processes of encoding and decoding writing systems involve shared understanding between writers and readers of the meaning behind the sets of characters that make up a script. Writing is usually recorded onto a durable medium, such as paper or electronic storage, although non-durable methods may also be used, such as writing on a computer display, on a blackboard, in sand, or by skywriting.
The Hungarianssettled the Carpathian Basin in 895. After the establishment of the Christian Hungarian kingdom, the old writing system was partly forced out of use and the Latin alphabet was adopted. However, among some professions (e.g. shepherds who used a "rovás-stick" to officially track the number of animals) and in Transylvania, the script has remained in use by the Székely Magyars, giving its Hungarian name (székely) rovásírás. The writing could also be found in churches, such as that in the commune of Atid.
The Hungarian conquest of the Carpathian Basin, also Hungarian conquest or Hungarian land-taking, was a series of historical events ending with the settlement of the Hungarians in Central Europe at the turn of the 9th and 10th centuries. Before the arrival of the Hungarians, three early medieval powers, the First Bulgarian Empire, East Francia and Moravia, had fought each other for control of the Carpathian Basin. They occasionally hired Hungarian horsemen as soldiers. Therefore, the Hungarians who dwelt on the Pontic steppes east of the Carpathians were familiar with their future homeland when their "land-taking" started.
The Latin or Roman alphabet is the writing system originally used by the ancient Romans to write the Latin language.
Transylvania is a historical region which is located in central Romania. Bound on the east and south by its natural borders, the Carpathian mountain range, historical Transylvania extended westward to the Apuseni Mountains. The term sometimes encompasses not only Transylvania proper, but also parts of the historical regions of Crișana and Maramureș, and occasionally the Romanian part of Banat.
Its English name in the ISO 15924 standard is Old Hungarian (Hungarian Runic).[2][3]
ISO 15924, Codes for the representation of names of scripts, defines two sets of codes for a number of writing systems (scripts). Each script is given both a four-letter code and a numeric one. Script is defined as "set of graphic characters used for the written form of one or more languages".
Name
In modern Hungarian, the script is known formally as Székely rovásírás ('Szekler script').[4] The writing system is generally known as rovásírás, székely rovásírás,[4] and székely-magyar írás (or simply rovás 'notch, score').[5]
History
Origins
Scientists cannot give an exact date or origin for the script.
Axe socket found near Campagna.
Amateur historian Attila Grandpierre describes the incision of an axe socket found in the plains of Campagna, near Rome, that was made around 1000 BC.[6]
Attila Grandpierre is a Hungarian musician, astrophysicist, physicist, self-taught historian, writer and poet. He is best known as leader/vocalist of the Galloping Coroners rock band.
The Roman Campagna, or just Campagna, is a low-lying area surrounding Rome in the Lazio region of central Italy, with an area of approximately 2,100 square kilometres (810 sq mi).
Rome is the capital city and a special comune of Italy. Rome also serves as the capital of the Lazio region. With 2,872,800 residents in 1,285 km2 (496.1 sq mi), it is also the country's most populated comune. It is the fourth most populous city in the European Union by population within city limits. It is the centre of the Metropolitan City of Rome, which has a population of 4,355,725 residents, thus making it the most populous metropolitan city in Italy. Rome is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, within Lazio (Latium), along the shores of the Tiber. The Vatican City is an independent country inside the city boundaries of Rome, the only existing example of a country within a city: for this reason Rome has been often defined as capital of two states.
Linguist András Róna-Tas derives Old Hungarian from the Old Turkic script,[7] itself recorded in inscriptions dating from c. AD 720. The origins of the Turkic scripts are uncertain. The scripts may be derived from Asian scripts such as the Pahlavi and Sogdian alphabets, or possibly from Kharosthi, all of which are in turn remotely derived from the Aramaic script.[8] Alternatively, according to some opinions, ancient Turkic runes descend from primaeval Turkic graphic logograms.[9]
András Róna-Tas is a Hungarian historian and linguist. He was born in 1931 in Budapest. Róna-Tas studied under such preeminent professors as Gyula Ortutay and Lajos Ligeti, and received a degree in folklore and eastern linguistics
Pahlavi or Pahlevi is a particular, exclusively written form of various Middle Iranian languages. The essential characteristics of Pahlavi are
The Sogdian alphabet was originally used for the Sogdian language, a language in the Iranian family used by the people of Sogdia. The alphabet is derived from Syriac, a descendant script of the Aramaic alphabet. The Sogdian alphabet is one of three scripts used to write the Sogdian language, the others being the Manichaean alphabet and the Syriac alphabet. It was used throughout Central Asia, from the edge of Iran in the west, to China in the east, from approximately 100–1200 A.D.
The inscription found in Homokmégy-Halom. From the 10th century
Speakers of Proto-Hungarian would have come into contact with Turkic peoples during the 7th or 8th century, in the context of the Turkic expansion, as is also evidenced by numerous Turkic loanwords in Proto-Hungarian.
All the letters but one for sounds which were shared by Turkic and Ancient Hungarian can be related to their Old Turkic counterparts. Most of the missing characters were derived by script internal extensions, rather than borrowings, but a small number of characters seem to derive from Greek, such as 'eF'.[10]
The modern Hungarian term for this script (coined in the 19th century), rovás, derives from the verb róni ('to score') which is derived from old Uralic, general Hungarian terminology describing the technique of writing (írni 'to write', betű 'letter', bicska 'knife (also: for carving letters)') derive from Turkic,[12] which further supports transmission via Turkic alphabets.
Medieval Hungary
The alphabet of Nikolsburg
Epigraphic evidence for the use of the Old Hungarian script in medieval Hungary dates to the 10th century, for example, from Homokmégy[13] The latter inscription was found on a fragment of a quiver made of bone. Although there have been several attempts to interpret it, the meaning of it is still unclear.
In 1000, with the coronation of Stephen I of Hungary, Hungary (previously an alliance of mostly nomadic tribes) became a Kingdom. The Latin alphabet was adopted as official script; however, Old Hungarian continued to be used in the vernacular.
The runic script was first mentioned in the 13th century Chronicle of Simon of Kéza,[14] where he stated that the Székelys may use the script of the Blaks.[15][16][17]
Early Modern period
The Old Hungarian script became part of folk art in several areas during this period.[citation needed] In Royal Hungary, Old Hungarian script was used less, although there are relics from this territory, too. There is another copy – similar to the Nikolsburg Alphabet – of the Old Hungarian alphabet, dated 1609. The inscription from Énlaka, dated 1668, is an example of the "folk art use".
Hungarian script[18] was first described in late Humanist/Baroque scholarship by János Telegdy in his primer "Rudimenta Priscae Hunnorum Linguae". Published in 1598, Telegdi's primer presents his understanding of the script and contains Hungarian texts written with runes, such as the Lord's Prayer.
In the 19th century, scholars began to research the rules and the other features of the Old Hungarian script. From this time, the name rovásírás ('runic writing') began to re-enter the popular consciousness in Hungary, and script historians in other countries began to use the terms "Old Hungarian", "Altungarisch", and so on. Because the Old Hungarian script had been replaced by Latin, linguistic researchers in the 20th century had to reconstruct the alphabet from historic sources. Gyula Sebestyén, an ethnographer and folklorist, and Gyula (Julius) Németh, a philologist, linguist, and Turkologist, did the lion's share of this work. Sebestyén's publications, Rovás és rovásírás (Runes and runic writing, Budapest, 1909) and A magyar rovásírás hiteles emlékei (The authentic relics of Hungarian runic writing, Budapest, 1915) contain valuable information on the topic.
Popular revival
Welcome sign in Latin and in Old Hungarian script for the town of Vonyarcvashegy (𐲮𐳛𐳚𐳀𐳢𐳄𐳮𐳀𐳤𐳏𐳉𐳎), Hungary
Beginning with Adorján Magyar in 1915, the script has been promulgated as a means for writing modern Hungarian. These groups approached the question of representation of the vowels of modern Hungarian in different ways. Adorján Magyar made use of characters to distinguish a/á and e/é but did not distinguish the other vowels by length. A school led by Sándor Forrai from 1974 onward did, however, distinguish i/í, o/ó, ö/ő, u/ú, and ü/ű. The revival has become part of a significant ideological nationalist subculture present not only in Hungary (largely centered in Budapest), but also amongst the Hungarian diaspora, particularly in the United States and Canada.[19]
Old Hungarian has seen other usages in the modern period, sometimes in association with or referencing Hungarian neopaganism,[citation needed] similar to the way in which Norse neopagans have taken up the Germanic runes, and Celtic neopagans have taken up the ogham script for various purposes. The use of the script sometimes has a political undertone, as they can be found from time to time in graffiti with a variety of content.[19]
Epigraphy
Luigi Ferdinando Marsigli's work (1690), The copied script derives from 1450
The inscription corpus includes:
A labeled crest etched into stone from Pécs, late 13th century (Label: aBA SZeNTjeI vaGYUNK aKI eSZTeR ANna erZSéBeT; We are the saints [nuns] of Aba; who are Esther, Anna and Elizabeth.)[citation needed]
Rod calendar, around 1300, copied by Luigi Ferdinando Marsigli in 1690.[20] It contains several feasts and names, thus it is one of the most extensive runic records.
The runic alphabet included 42 letters. As in the Old Turkic script, some consonants had two forms, one to be used with back vowels (a, á, o, ó, u, ú) and another for front vowels (e, é, i, í, ö, ő, ü, ű). The names of the consonants are always pronounced with a vowel. In the old alphabet, the consonant-vowel order is reversed, unlike today's pronunciation (ep rather than pé). This is because the oldest inscriptions lacked vowels and were rarely written down, similar to other ancient languages' consonant-writing systems (Arabic, Hebrew, Aramaic, etc.). The alphabet did not contain letters for the phonemes dz and dzs of modern Hungarian, since these are relatively recent developments in the language's history. Nor did it have letters corresponding to the Latin q, w, x and y. The modern revitalization movement has created symbols for these; in Unicode encoding, they are represented as ligatures.
For more information about the transliteration's pronunciation, see Hungarian alphabet.
The Hungarian runes also include some non-alphabetical runes which are not ligatures but separate signs. These are identified in some sources as "capita dictionum" (likely a misspelling of capita dicarum[21]). Further research is needed to define their origin and traditional usage. Some examples:
TPRUS:
ENT: 𐲧𐳧
TPRU:
NAP:
EMP: 𐲡𐳡
UNK: 𐲕𐳥
US: 𐲲𐳲
AMB: 𐲃𐳃
Features
Old Hungarian letters were usually written from right to left on sticks[citation needed]. Later, in Transylvania, they appeared on several media. Writings on walls also were right to left[citation needed] and not boustrophedon style (alternating direction right to left and then left to right).
Hungarian numerals
The numbers are almost the same as the Roman, Etruscan, and Chuvash numerals. Numbers of livestock were carved on tally sticks and the sticks were then cut in two lengthwise to avoid later disputes.
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
50
100
500
1000
𐳺
𐳺𐳺
𐳺𐳺𐳺
𐳺𐳺𐳺𐳺
𐳻
𐳻𐳺
𐳻𐳺𐳺
𐳻𐳺𐳺𐳺
𐳻𐳺𐳺𐳺𐳺
𐳼
𐳽
𐳾
𐳿
Ligatures are common. (Note: the Hungarian runic script employed a number of ligatures. In some cases, an entire word was written with a single sign.) The Unicode standard does not support ligatures.
There are no lower or upper case letters, but the first letter of a proper name was often written a bit larger. Though the Unicode standard has upper and lowercase letters, which are the same in shape, the difference is only their size.
The writing system did not always mark vowels (similar to many Asian writing systems). The rules for vowel inclusion were as follows:
If there are two vowels side by side, both have to be written, unless the second could be readily determined.
The vowels have to be written if their omission created ambiguity. (Example: krk – can be interpreted as kerék – [wheel] and kerek – [rounded], thus the writer had to include the vowels to differentiate the intended words.)
The vowel at the end of the word must be written.
Sometimes, especially when writing consonant clusters, a consonant was omitted. This is a phonologic process, with the script reflecting the exact surface realization.
Text example
Text From Csikszentmárton, 1501
Text from Csíkszentmárton, 1501.Runes originally written as ligatures are underlined.
Interpretation in old Hungarian: "ÚRNaK SZÜLeTéSéTÜL FOGVÁN ÍRNaK eZeRÖTSZÁZeGY eSZTeNDŐBE MÁTYáS JÁNOS eSTYTáN KOVÁCS CSINÁLTáK MÁTYáSMeSTeR GeRGeLYMeSTeRCSINÁLTÁK G IJ A aS I LY LY LT A" (The letters actually written in the runic text are written with uppercase in the transcription.)
Interpretation in modern Hungarian: "(Ezt) az Úr születése utáni 1501. évben írták. Mátyás, János, István kovácsok csinálták. Mátyás mester (és) Gergely mester csinálták [uninterpretable]"
English translation: "(This) was written in the 1501st year of our Lord. The smiths Matthias, John (and) Stephen did (this). Master Matthias (and) Master Gregory did [uninterpretable]"
A set of closely related 8-bit code pages exist, devised in the 1990s by Gabor Hosszú. These were mapped to Latin-1 or Latin-2 character set fonts. After installing one of them and applying their formatting to the document – because of the lack of capital letters – runic characters could be entered in the following way: those letters which are unique letters in today's Hungarian orthography are virtually lowercase ones, and can be written by simply pressing the specific key; and since the modern digraphs equal to separate rovás letters, they were encoded as 'uppercase' letters, i.e. in the space originally restricted for capitals. Thus, typing a lowercase g will produce the rovas character for the sound marked with Latin script g, but entering an uppercase G will amount to a rovás sign equivalent to a digraph gy in Latin-based Hungarian orthography.
Gallery
Stone Shield pattern of Pécs with Old Hungarian Script (circa 1250 AD), Hungary
↑ András Róna-Tas: On the Development and Origin of the East Turkic "Runic" Script (In: Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientiarum Hungariae XLI (1987), p. 7-14
↑ Franz Altheim: Geschichte der Hunnen, vol. 1, p. 118
↑ Új Magyar Lexikon (New Hungarian Encyclopaedia) – Akadémiai Kiadó, Budapest, 1962. (Volume 5) ISBN963-05-2808-8
↑ András Róna-Tas A magyar írásbeliség török eredetéhez (In: Klára Sándor (ed.) Rovás és Rovásírás p.9-14 — Szeged, 1992, ISBN963-481-885-4)
↑ István Fodor – György Diószegi – László Legeza: Őseink nyomában. (On the scent of our ancestors) – Magyar Könyvklub-Helikon Kiadó, Budapest, 1996. ISBN963-208-400-4 (Page 82)
↑ Dóra Tóth-Károly Bera: Honfoglalás és őstörténet. Aquila, Budapest, 1996. ISBN963-8276-96-7
↑ Bodor, György: A blakok. In: Viktor Szombathy and Gyula László (eds.), Magyarrá lett keleti népek. Budapest, 1988, pp. 56-60.
↑ Adolf Armbruster. Romanitatea Românilor: The History of an Idea. Editura Enciclopedică. Ch1.3. This is further strengthened by the quote by Kézai: Blackis, qui ipsorum (Romanorum) fuere pastores et coloni, remanentibus sponte in Pannonia.
↑ "Archived copy"(PDF). Archived(PDF) from the original on 2016-11-14. Retrieved 2016-11-29.CS1 maint: Archived copy as title (link)
↑ Diringer, David. 1947. The Alphabet. A Key to the History of Mankind. London: Hutchinson's Scientific and technical Publications, pp. 314-315. Gelb, I. J. 1952. A study of writing: The foundations of grammatology. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, pp. 142, 144. Gaur, Albertine. 1992. A History of Writing. London: British Library. ISBN0-7123-0270-0. pp. 143. Coulmas, Florian. 1996. The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Writing Systems. ISBN0-631-19446-0. pp.366-368
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