Fred Hamori
The uniqueness of the Hungarian language is one thing that cannot be denied and must be explained properly as an integral part of the history of the people who use it. Many non Hungarians linguists have been enchanted by this phenomenally unique language, writing glorious descriptions of it, like Sir Bowring or Mezofanti. However it was the great poets and writers of the last century that helped to save it, because their art has elevated the language to new pinnacles and scrubbed off the centuries of abuse, as the language of only the common people. It is a miracle of God that it has survived in face of so much adversity in this turbulent part of the world.
Over the last 50 years or so every book dealing with Hungarian past from Hungary, allways made reference to the origin and source of the Hungarian language and people directly from the so called Finno-Ugric language group. Within that language family even tighter bonds were supposed to exist with the Ugric sub-branch. The linguistic relationship of Hungarian to the Finno-Ugrian language family is rarely contested even by proponents of other theories of origin, only the degree of this supposed exclusive relationship and most especially with the historical consequences based on it. Hungarian is supposed to be an independent language within this group for at least 4,000 years, based on its many unique features and is also the largest member of the group and the most dissimilar to the rest of this language group. It also shares an unusually large number of words with the eastern Altaic branch of the greater Ural-Altaic family, of which Finno_Ugrian is but a descendant by way of an earlier Uralic branch.
What most readers never realized were the draconian methods used to enforce this theory in the last 50 years under communist-Russian domination and how this theory dominated all aspects of the study of Hungarian prehistory. All the results of the other sciences, which could shed a light on our past, were judged on their ability to support this theory, which in effect crippled them. If it did not agree it was obviously because it was invalid. So over time through such selection much of Hungarian prehistory has become more and more clouded and it seems that the only thing that was absolutely believed any longer was the Finno-Ugrian descent. Yet this theory did not agree and could not explain traditions, early history, archeology, anthropology, traditional music, art, burial customs or anything else to do with early Hungarians. Things which amongst Hungarians had very early historic roots in the east.
Indeed much of the basic Finno-Ugrian core words (body parts, family designations, nature, important verbs, suffixes.. etc) are not unique to them if we are allowed to look beyond the narrow confines which their proponents have limited this language group. This in itself is not in conflict with having a relationship, only its exclusive and overly restrictive character. Whether we look to the south or to the east from the eastern borders of Europe, we can find similar words with Hungarian for the most basic body parts, verbs, animals, plants and so on without having to resort to an exclusive Finn-Ugor explanation. Sometimes one only needs to dig deeper into the past to find the links, which were probably originally severed and overlaid by the expanding Iranian newcomers to the area of Central Asia (ca 1,500).
One of the latest revelations mentioned in a book by anthropologist Dr Kiszely István, in his upcoming book on "The Early History of the Hungarians". He writes: "Those words in Hungarian which were proclaimed to be undeniably Finno-Ugrian in origin suffered another blow when in 1993 a new Uigur-English dictionary was published in China and also when Hungarian linguist Peter Sára published his book on the origin of the Hungarian language called 'A different way' in 1994".
"In his book the author adds to the grudgingly accepted list of 265 basic Hungarian-Turkic root words another 1,500 which were believed to be exclusively Finno-Ugrian originally or else of unknown origin." Colliender's Finn-Ugor Dictionary claims that the local Hungarian school exaggerates the number of words of common Hungarian & Finn-Ugor usage and claims that only about 500 words are valid. Indeed the list has been declining even in Hungary over time while words of unknown origin have become quite large (50%).
In this light the amount of "ancient " rather than modern Altaic words in Hungarian have become very substantial and for the first time more than the core Finn-Ugor root words. Part of the problem was that many of these words are no longer commonly used in many modern Altaic languages . Since these are the most basic and inner parts of the language they cannot be explained away as borrowing. This newest revelation undermines the whole idea that the Finno-Ugric languages are independent of the Altaic languages.
Let me reiterate that basically no one who knows at least a little about the subject denies that Hungarian is related to the Finno-Ugrian language family however it also is related to the Altaic languages as well as others. Its link with the rest of this "Finn-Ugor family" is not as close in time as most of the other Finn-Ugor languages are to one another. Some estimate that they have been an independent branch for at least 4,000 years. The relationship of Altaic words in Hungarian is often explained by borrowing, but in fact it is much more than that, since similarity to some other branch of the Ural-Altaic family should not be considered as a borrowed term but as a survival in a language which is more of a historic bridge between two extremes of a greatly dispersed original common language family. The form of these Altaic words are often not like modern or even Old-Turkic but older indicating an ancient common root language from which both Hungarians and Turkic languages derived, not counting the other unique influences to which the eastern and western branch of this extended family were influenced over the millenniums. It is misleading to call this parental tongue with the overused term Turkic since it preceded it. Indeed even the Ural-Altaic term is very misleading for it greatly minimizes the extent of the speakers of this languages in the past.
Strangely enough despite the many ancient Altaic words in Hungarian there is a very strong politically motivated Turko-phobia in Hungarian linguistic circles, which prevents serious work in bridging the two poles of this surviving Ural-Altaic group. Some of them even openly deny the existence of an early Ural-Altaic parental language, which seems to fly in the face of the logical and easily discernible links in their descendants. The foreign dominance of the Hungarian school is also a historic fact. By denying researchers the opportunity of publishing or researching these and other relationship they have self perpetuated an oversimplified but incomplete theory and have also forced many exceptional people to leave Hungary and even live and research in Asia and publish there without any official support. However their works are only partially published and known in Hungary itself. (Körösi Csoma, Vámbéri Ármin, Stein Aurel, Mándoky István,)
Another major problem with direct descent from the Finn-Ugor people is that the Hungarian people are not genetically closely tied to their Finnic linguistic relative, least of all to the eastern Ugrians who are Mongoloids and are unlike most of the other Finn-Ugors of Eastern Europe. Any racial change that would account for Hungarian characteristics during their settlement in Hungary, would have taken an exceptional degree of genetic mixing before their arrival, which would have had great linguistic repercussions also. There is however no evidence that these Eastern "Ugors" even originate from their current area, but they came from the east and just borrowed their extra Hungarian vocabulary when living close to Hungarians, before they moved away and migrated to Central Europe. After all these Ugrians were a tiny minority next to a much larger nation living close to them. Apparently aside from the extra Hungarian vocabulary they did not borrow much of Hungarian grammar, as their version is more dissimilar to Hungarian than other western Finnic languages are. Vocabulary is more easily borrowed than grammar from a more advanced and populous people than by the smaller and less advanced one.
According to anthropology researchers like Dr Marc Karin, Dr Henkey Gyula, Dr Tibor Toth, Dr Istvan Kiszely and most of their predecessors: the Hungarians were closer related to the more southern Central Asian, Pamir and western Caucasus Area nations in race, which even today's makes up a sizable percentage of their historic population. Turks, Huns, Scythian, Iranians and others had many historic and racial links with them and shared common territory with them in their earlier homelands. Historical these Southern "Turanian" (non I.E. and non Semitic Caucasian) people were often in close contact with much of the territory of the eastern Finno-Ugrian people as well, therefore they cannot be ignored in the equation of Hungarian ethnogenesis even if we assume that they lived only north of the Black Sea, for these types represent the overwhelming majority of their racial types, while the so called "possibly Finnic" elements are a minimal percentage of Hungarians while the eastern Ugrian variety is insignificant. After the depopulation caused by the long Turkish wars in the 15th and 16th centuries, there has also been sizable Western European immigration that has also enriched this gene pool mix.
The history of the people of the steppes of Eurasia was extremely dynamic and varied in comparison to the slowly changing and static lifestyles of the settled farmers of Europe. Therefore any theory which tries to isolate them from this reality must be terrifically limited! Unfortunately it also makes this subject very complicated.
Rather than spend much time in explaining complex linguistic theories, which would naturally be flawed and would be distrusted, the most neutral information which I can think of showing would be to supply some basic short lists of basic Hungarian vocabulary, word particles and list their related equivalents in the other Finnic, Altaic and Dravidian language families and in such extinct languages that were often associated with FinnoUgrians by their pioneering researchers because of similar vocabulary, grammar and several unique linguistic features. Unfortunately these extinct languages are all too often treated as unique and isolated languages today as a consequence of the segmented Ural-Altaic theory. A historic impossibility.
While I do not claim this list to be complete or without flaws, I hope it shows that Hungarian cannot be clearly placed into the mainstream of any existing language family today but as a link between other branches of this larger Ural-Altaic family.
Our best way to understand the links of this language today is to start with our surviving known linguistic cousins, like the Finno-Ugrians and Altaic languages as a frame of reference for deriving the possible archaic versions of the word as they may have been in the distant past. In this the foundation laid by linguists so far is quite useful and relevant, for they not only showed how languages can evolve but how the older meanings can be reconstructed from related tongues. Therefore it seems only natural that due to the great gulf of time between Hungarian and their nearest living linguistic relatives any generalizations of history and culture, based on the rest of the language family can at best apply only to the distant past, when they still spoke a common language and lived together. Over their long independent evolution their neighbors were certainly not exclusively Finno-Ugrians. Whatever their "ultimate" roots were, the other branches of the Hungarian family tree cannot be ignored but also must be given relative status to the degree of their influence.
The following topics areas are to allow our readers to selectively browse and look at areas of interest by selecting the underlined categories below. This is not meant to be a serious linguistic analysis. I am only trying to introduce new concepts and material, not to solve the problem which awaits professional linguists. I do not wish to jump the gun and offer a particular solution only to state that new solutions are greatly needed. Such a new solution however must be able to explain not just linguistics but remain in harmony with the physical sciences and history as well..
This list does not concentrate on the many European loan words which have entered Hungarian over the last 1,1000 + years, for the origin of those are much better understood and usually recognized for what they are. Instead I have emphasized the early language and its ties. Select from the following topics if you wish.
[list still under construction!]
[Family & Clan | The Human Body | Plants | Animals | Colors ]
[ Nature | Time & Heavens | Religion ]
[ Pronouns | Noun Cases | Prefixes & Suffixes ]
[ Math & Numbers | Feelings | Verbs | Adjectives ]
For language reference books used in constructing these lists select [ References]
A Turkic/Hungarian word list found at the Turkish homepage Tukic/Magyar
The Finno-Ugrian Homepage is found at Finn-Ugor
A Hungarian -English Dictionary is found at Dictionary