Alternative theories of Hungarian language origins

The Hungarian language is a member of the Uralic language family. The Hungarian Academy of Sciences and scientific support worldwide accept this conclusion. However, there is a history of other theories from before and after the Uralic connection was established, and some fringe theories continue to deny the connection.

Rationale

Opponents of the Finno-Ugric theory put forward alternative theories in response to two principal problems:

  1. According to one view, the relations between languages cannot be identified with ethnological history. The original Uralic and Finno-Ugric homelands are only the places of origin of the languages; however, within the framework of the Finno-Ugric theory, a Uralic origin of the Hungarians as an ethnic (as opposed to linguistic) group is also asserted. According to the alternative theories, the vast majority of the constituent Hungarian ethnicities have no Uralic connection whatsoever—genetically, archaeologically or linguistically. Therefore, the development of the Finno-Ugric language family can only be explained by language exchange, overlaying, or a transit language.
  2. The second main argument is that, although Hungarian does have similarities in structure and vocabulary with Finno-Ugric languages, it has equally significant and fundamental similarities to other language groups, such as the Turkic languages. The alternative theories claim that the connections between Finno-Ugric languages do not pre-date these other relationships; or even that Finno-Ugric peoples took up a linguistic stratum from the Hungarians into their own languages, and that it's on this basis that these languages are now classified as Finno-Ugric.

Alternative theories

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 "Ugor-török háború" ("Ugric-Turk War"), which started as a scientific dispute, but quickly turned into a long-lasting (it raged for two decades) bitter feud. In this work Vámbéry tried to prove with the help of word comparisons, that as a result of intermingling of the early Hungarians with Turkic peoples, the Hungarian language got a distinct dual (Ugric AND Turkic) character, albeit it is basically Ugric in origin, so he presented a variant of linguistic contact theory.

"...the Hungarian language is Ugric in its origin, but because the nations later contact and historical transformation it is equally Ugric and Turkic in character..."

"...a magyar nyelv eredetében ugor, de a nemzet későbbi érintkezése és történeti átalakulásánál fogva egyformán ugor és török jellemű..." in: Vámbéry Ármin: Magyar és török-tatár szóegyezések. p. 120.

The "Ugric–Turkic War"

"The fight, which my fanatical opponents, regrettably, brought over also to the field of personal remarks, lasted quite a long time, but the old Latin proverb was proven once again: Philologi certant, tamen sub judice lis."

"A küzdelem, melyet fanatikus ellenfeleim, sajnos, átvittek a személyeskedés terére is, eltartott jó sokáig, de ezúttal is bevált a régi diák közmondás: Philologi certant, tamen sub judice lis." in: Vámbéry Ármin: Küzdelmeim. Ch. IX. p. 130.[2]

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. (Budenz's work was investigated and analysed by a group of modern linguists, and they found it neither as scientific nor as conclusive in the question of the affiliation of Hungarian language, as the author stated.)[3] The historian Henrik Marczali, linguist Károly Pozder, linguist József Thúry, anthropologist Aurél Török, and many other scientist supported Vámbéry.[4][5][6][7]

The Finno-Ugrist Pál Hunfalvy widened the front of the "Ugric-Turk War" with his book "Magyarország ethnographiája.",[8] 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.",[9] and published in 1882, Vámbéry went a step further, and presented a newer version of his theory, in which he claimed that Hungarian nation and language are basically 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.

The origin of 'fish fat smelling kinship' in the work of the Finno-Ugrist Barna Ferdinánd, titled "Vámbéry Ármin A magyarok eredete czímű műve néhány főbb állításának bírálata." published in 1884.

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. In fact, Turanist scientists did not write such things about the Finno-Ugric peoples, and Vámbéry and his followers mentioned these kin 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.[10]

Vámbéry held to his scientific theory about the mixed origin of Hungarian language and people till 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 evidences were the large corpus of ancient Turkish words in Hungarian word-stock (300-400 for a minimum, and even more with good alternative Turkic etymologies),[11] 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. But, in the context of linguistics the use of a strictly binary family tree model proved unfruitful and problematic over the years. We have seen the Uralic tree disintegrate and flatten into a “comb”, and the place of Samoyedic languages and Yukaghir languages within/in relation to the other members is still very problematic. Some scientists questioned seriously even the existence of Uralic as valid language family, and attention turned towards the complex areal relations and interactions of Eurasian languages (Uralic and Altaic languages included). In the light of these developments linguists have started to pay due credit to Vámbéry and his work.[12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20]

In connection with Vámbéry's work and the ensuing Ugric-Turkic War it is worth recalling the thoughts of linguist Maarten Mous:[21] „Mixed languages pose a challenge to historical linguistics because these languages defy classification. One attitude towards mixed languages has been that they simply do not exist, and that the claims for mixed languages are instances of a naive use of the term. The inhibition to accept the existence of mixed languages is linked to the fact that it was inconceivable how they could emerge, and moreover their mere existence posited a threat to the validity of the comparative method and to genetic linguistics.”

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, 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 in 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.

Kabardian-Hungarian language relation

Linguist Gábor Bálint de Szentkatolna was the first to systematize and represent this 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 lingual side, but form 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 descendant, 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 (what 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 didn not excluded the Ugric impact, as he was of the opinion 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").

Biblical word concords

Studies the Hungarian names in the Bible.

Tamana-research

Studies the similarities and concords of geographical names found in the Carpathian Basin and all over the world.

Dené-Yeniseian

A relationship between the Yeniseian languages and Hungarian have been suggested, some have argued that the Hungarian language is a descendant of the Hunnic language which is theorized to be of Yeniseian origin. Some similar words have been also found between the Yeniseian languages and Hungarian.[22]

Hungarian Ket Yugh Proto-Yeniseian
hegy qa?j xa?j qa?j
ég es es es
hó qo xo qoga

Hungarian-Sumerian hypothesis

Suggests a linguistic relation between the Hungarian and Sumerian languages and even a common origin between both peoples.[23]

Etruscan-Hungarian language relation

Another theory that received attention was the Etruscan-Hungarian theory, based on the research of Italian linguist Mario Alinei. Rather speaking about an Etruscan-Hungarian language relation, Alinei claims that Etruscan belongs to the Finno-Ugric family, and concludes that its closest relative is Hungarian. Alinei's proposal has been rejected by Etruscan experts such as Giulio M. Facchetti,[24][25] Finno-Ugric experts such as Angela Marcantonio,[26] and by Hungarian historical linguists such as Bela Brogyanyi.[27]

Hungarian alphabet with Latin transcription a á b c cs d dz dzs e é f g gy h
Hungarian articulation a á bé cé csé dé dzé dzsé e é ef gé gyé há
Etruscan variant ay – bee cee/kay csuh dee dzuh – ee – ef gee – haa
Etruscan alphabet[28] – / – – –
Runic script
Hungarian alphabet with Latin transcription i í j k ak l ly m n ny o p q r
Hungarian articulation i í jé ká ak el lyé em en eny o pé ku er
Etruscan variant ai – jay kay/cee – el – em en – ow pe que ar
Etruscan alphabet – / – – –
Runic script –
Hungarian alphabet with Latin transcription s sz t ty u v w x y z zs
Hungarian articulation es esz té tyé u vé vé iksz ipszilon zé zs
Etruscan variant suh esz tee tyuh yu vee wee eksz (wai) zed wai
Etruscan alphabet ()
Runic script

Hungarian root theory

The root theory is a system of internal reconstruction of Hungarian, which furthermore proposes that the integrated word bushes of the Hungarian language would not exist with the assumed scale of post combinations. 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, ignores 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 partly or in 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 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.

Criticism of the alternative theories

Criticism from the national identity

According 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's Finno-Ugric origin was met with disapproval because of the theory's clear anti-national message and political purpose.[29]

Criticism of the methodology

Among the deniers of the theory, there are several widely used historical linguistic methods. For example, many of alternative theorists work with the modern version of Hungarian, and take the similarities to other languages as solid proofs, ignoring the lack or presence of the systematic sound correspondence.

A comparative science was born in the 19th century who declared that we should inspect the differences, rather than the similarities, when comparing two languages. The resemblance of two words is no proof on language relation, simply because the reason of similarity can be loanwords, or even a coincidence. Semasiology and phonetics both change in language, which is why linguists and skeptics suspect loanwords, and not relation, when observing too much correspondence. However, some differences can only be explained with the common origin of the examined word set.

Supporters of alternative theories disregard the accidental existence of the more hundred similarities, claiming that identical phonetics and correspondent meaning at the same time are no coincidences. A main principle of these theories is that language families were born through aerial language equalization, though the possibility of loanwords supports the theory, rather than refutes it.

Supporters of the alternative theories claim that systematic sound correspondences can not be witnessed in all languages, so they can not be generalized. For this reason, no one objected when theorists made far reaching conclusions by comparing the word roots of the more than four thousand years of an extinct Eblaite language to today's Hebrew and Arabic. They pair up the name "Ebla" itself with the Arabic "ablā" (meaning 'white rock').[30] They claim that both the Indo-European and Finno-Ugric language families were used a common word set.

Difficulties in using certain theories

According to the Finno-Ugric theory, the words relatable with Finno-Ugric languages are more basic, 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 or other non-Finno-Ugric origin. By itself, the theory of the basic word set is unable to show relation even within Indo-European languages. Hence, the basic word set theory cannot be viewed without a degree of caution. The methods used to show relation to the Turk-Hungarian language relation, are almost the same comparative methods as used by Finnugrists; however, those methods are widely questioned today.

Deniers of the word bush (Ancient language) their point that the theory is not scientifically provable. Critics point out that the most scenic and flawlessly working form of the "word bush system" excludes desultory relating, and is the essentially a three letter root system that can be found in the Semitic, and in wider sense in the Afroasiatic language family, and not in Hungarian. They go on to say that the root system is not a special, new, or newly founded linguistic attribute, but a "linguistic constant", what can be found in almost every language.[31] 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. It is the variant that was built on two consonants. For example, the word bush constructed on the k.r sonant frame. Some of its elements are three letter roots, but the semantic role of the consonants is in all of the elements. It is possible to find Akkadian related words and words with Akkadian origin in all the Finno-Ugric and Indo-European languages. The same Akkadian words can be found in today's semitic languages.[32]

The arguments of the alternative theories do not hold up with current scientific methodology, which is why some linguists, and even the few who oppose Finno-Ugric theory neglect them.

See also

References
  1. VÁMBÉRY Ármin: Magyar és török-tatár nyelvekbeli szóegyezések." In Nyelvtudományi közlemények VIII. p. 109-189.http://www.nytud.hu/nyk/reg/008.pdf
  2. VÁMBÉRY Ármin: Küzdelmeim. 1905. http://mek.oszk.hu/03900/03975/03975.pdf
  3. Angela MARCANTONIO, Pirjo NUMMENAHO, Michela SALVAGNI: THE ”UGRIC-TURKIC BATTLE”: A CRITICAL REVIEW. http://www.kirj.ee/public/va_lu/l37-2-1.pdf
  4. "FARKAS Ildikó: A magyar turanizmus török kapcsolatai ("The Turkish connections of Hungarian Turanism")". www.valosagonline.hu [Valóság (2013 I.-IV)]. 2013. Retrieved 7 March 2014.
  5. THÚRY József: Az ugor-magyar theoria. 1. rész. 1884. http://epa.oszk.hu/02300/02392/00030/pdf/EPA02392_egy_phil_kozl_08_1884_02_131-158.pdf
  6. THÚRY József: Az ugor-magyar theoria. 2. rész. 1884. http://epa.oszk.hu/02300/02392/00031/pdf/EPA02392_egy_phil_kozl_08_1884_03-04_295-311.pdf
  7. THÚRY József: Az ugor-magyar theoria. 3. rész. 1884. http://epa.oszk.hu/02300/02392/00032/pdf/EPA02392_egy_phil_kozl_08_1884_05_416-440.pdf
  8. HUNFALVY Pál: Magyarország ethnographiája. http://www.fszek.hu/mtda/Hunfalvy-Magyarorszag_ethnographiaja.pdf
  9. VÁMBÉRY Ármin: A magyarok eredete. Ethnologiai tanulmány.1882.http://digitalia.lib.pte.hu/?p=3265
  10. SÁNDOR Klára: Nemzet és történelem. XXVI. rész. http://galamus.hu/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=44796:nemzet-es-toertenelem&catid=68:cssandorklara&Itemid=105
  11. RÓNA-TAS, András and BERTA, Árpád: West Old Turkic. Turkic Loanwords in Hungarian. 2011.
  12. SÁNDOR Klára: A magyar-török kétnyelvűség és ami mögötte van. http://web.unideb.hu/~tkis/sl/sk_tm.
  13. FEHÉR Krisztina: A családfamodell és következményei. http://mnytud.arts.klte.hu/mnyj/49/08feherk.pdf
  14. RÓNA-TAS András: Morphological embedding of Turkic verbal bases in Hungarian. In:JOHANSON, Lars and ROBBEETS, Martine Irma eds.: Transeurasian verbal morphology in a comparative perspective: genaology, contact, chance. 2010. p.33-42.
  15. CSATÓ, Éva Ágnes: Perceived formal and functional equivalence: The Hungarian ik-conjugation. In: ROBBEETS, Martine Irma & BISANG, Walter eds.: Paradigm change: In the Transeurasian languages and beyond. 2014. p. 129-139.
  16. AGOSTINI, Paolo: LANGUAGE RECONSTRUCTION – APPLIED TO THE URALIC LANGUAGES. http://hrcak.srce.hr/file/161182
  17. KORTLANDT, Frederik: An outline of Proto-Indo-European. http://www.kortlandt.nl/publications/art269e.pdf
  18. PARPOLA Asko: The problem of Samoyed origins in the light of archaeology: On the formation and dispersal of East Uralic (Proto-Ugro-Samoyed) http://www.sgr.fi/sust/sust264/sust264_parpola.pdf
  19. HÄKKINEN Jaakko: Early contacts between Uralic and Yukaghir. http://www.sgr.fi/sust/sust264/sust264_hakkinenj.pdf
  20. JANHUNEN Juha: Proto-Uralic - what, where, and when? http://www.sgr.fi/sust/sust258/sust258_janhunen.pdf
  21. MATRAS, Yaron and BAKKER, Peter eds.: The Mixed Language Debate: Theoretical and Empirical Advances 2003. p. 209.
  22. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/290544045_Huns_and_Xiongnu_identified_by_Hungarian_and_Yeniseian_shared_etymologies
  23. Fodor, István (1976). "Are the Sumerians and the Hungarians or the Uralic peoples related?". Current Anthropology. 17 (1): 115–118. doi:10.1086/201674. JSTOR 2741589.
  24. "Archived copy" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2011-07-20. Retrieved 2010-10-15.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  25. Facchetti, Giulio M. "The Interpretation of Etruscan Texts and its Limits" (PDF). In: Journal of Indo-European Studies 33, 3/4, 2005, 359–388. Quote from p. 371: ʻ[…] suffice it to say that Alinei clears away all the combinatory work done on Etruscan (for grammar specially) to try to make Uralic inflections fit without ripping the seams. He completely ignores the aforesaid recent findings in phonology (and phoneme/grapheme relationships), returning to the obsolete but convenient theory that the handwriting changed and orthography was not consolidated'.
  26. Marcantonio, Angela (2004). "Un caso di 'fantalinguistica'. A proposito di Mario Alinei: 'Etrusco: una forma arcaica di ungherese'." In: Studi e Saggi Linguistici XLII, 173–200, where Marcantonio states that "La tesi dell'Alinei è da rigettare senza alcuna riserva" ("Alinei's thesis must be rejected without any reservation"), criticizes his methodology and the fact that he ignored the comparison with Latin and Greek words in pnomastic and institutional vocabulary. Large quotes can be read at Melinda Tamás-Tarr "Sulla scrittura degli Etruschi: «Ma è veramente una scrittura etrusca»? Cosa sappiamo degli Etruschi III". In: Osservatorio letterario. Ferrara e l'Altrove X/XI, Nos. 53/54 (November–December/January–February 2006/2007, 67–73. Marcantonio is Associated Professor of Historical Linguistics and Finno-Ugric Studies at the University of Rome "La Sapienza" (personal website).
  27. Brogyanyi, Bela. "Die ungarische alternative Sprachforschung und ihr ideologischer Hintergrund – Versuch einer Diagnose". In: Sprache & Sprachen 38 (2008), 3–15, who claims that Alinei shows a complete ignorance on Etruscan and Hungarian ["glänzt er aber durch völlige Unkenntnis des Ungarischen und Etruskischen (vgl. Alinei 2003)"] and that the thesis of a relation between Hungarian and Etruscan languages deserves no attention.
  28. "az etruszk ábécé". omniglot.com. Archived from the original on 2013-04-24. Retrieved 2017-09-06.
  29. "Magyar Tudomány 1999. augusztus #124; Bereczki Gábor: Őstörténetünk kérdései". epa.oszk.hu. Retrieved 2017-09-06.
  30. Bermant, Chaim; Weitzmann, Michael. Missing or empty |title= (help)
  31. A legfőbb különbség a sémi és magyar gyök- vagy szóbokorrendszer között az, hogy míg előbbiben a gyökrendszer a nyelv alapzatát képezi, mely ma is minden különösebb nyelvészeti absztrakció, hangmegfeleltetés, stb. nélkül látható, addig a magyarban ezt csak visszakövetkeztetésekkel lehet megtalálni.
  32. Komoróczy Géza (2009.). "Új és régi – Mezopotámia az i. sz. 1. évezred első felében". Ókor VIII (2), 3-7. o.

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