Alternative theories of the Hungarian language relations

The current linguistic theory suggests that the Hungarian language belongs to the Finno-Ugric branch of the Uralic language family; the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (MTA) supports this idea. Based on the harmony with the Indo-European language theory, it is scientifically supported worldwide. However, some expound alternative theories of the Hungarian language relations.

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 is related in equally significant and fundamental ways to other language groups: for example, to 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.

History of alternative relating of the Hungarian language

Ármin Vámbéry in dervish dress, c. 1860

Ármin Vámbéry published his work with the title Magyar és török-tatár szóegyeztetések ("Hungarian and Turk-Tatar word concords") in 1869. The book says that the Hungarian language has Finno-Ugric origins, and it loaned many words from different Turkic languages when it got in touch with them later.[1] The book began the famous linguistic debate, called the "Ugor-Turkic wars", and eventually lost against the Finno-Ugric theory raised by German linguists József Budenz and Pál Hunfalvy (né Hunsdorfer). The main reason behind this defeat was that at this time the Finno-Ugric theory demonstrated more than a thousand (this number today is no more than 500) unfounded Finno-Ugric word concords, while accusing the opposition's examples as being unfounded.

After this, Vámbéry never dealt with the historical language theories again.

Ágoston Trefort

Supporters of the alternative theories often label the Finno-Ugric theory as anti-national, or a matter filled with politics. They often cite Ágoston Trefort. In 1877, as the Minister of Religion and Education, and later also President of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Trefort said: "I have to take notice on the country’s interests, and that's why I accept the—internationally more favorable—idea of Finno-Ugric ancestry, because we need European and not Asian relations. The government will only support scientists who side with the Finno-Ugric ancestry."

The citation appeared first in 1976, in Györgyné Hary's article titled Valóság ("Reality"). Ms. Hary didn't name her source (if she had any), so the existence of this citation is not verified.[2]

In his work Őstörténeti csodabogarak ("Odballs of Ancient History") from 1943, Miklós Zsirai presents a list that shows what other languages they checked for Hungarian connections, other than Finno-Ugric and Turk: Hebrew, Egyptian, Sumerian, Etruscan, Hittite, Basque, Persian, Pelasgian, Greek, Chinese, Sanskrit, English, Tibetic, Tamil, Cornish, Kamchatal, Yukaghir, Japanese, Ainu, Dravidian, Māori, Magar, Qin, Lepcha, Dafla, Abor-miri, Khasi, Mikir, Munda, Gondi, Armenian, Bodo, Koch, Garo, Kachari, Manipuri, Telugu, Migal, Brahui, Tapka, Manio, Sopka, Horpa, Sherpa, Sunwar, Garo, Rodong, Churusija, Kulung, Bahing, Lehorong, Sangpang, Dumi, Balochi, Kamu, and Humi.

The alternative language theories tend to follow the multidisciplinary approach, as they also rely on the results of other sciences like archeology and human history. Linguistics are in this case only the auxiliary sciences of history. According to the alternative theories, if a language theory states something that is not provable by history, then it is the language theory that is wrong, and not human history.

Alternative theories

Even Finno-Ugric theory supporters are divided into two directions: one supports the existence of the ancient Finno-Ugric languages, and claims that all the Finno-Ugric languages today evolved from them. The other claims that Finno-Ugric languages are only one branch of the Ugric language family, and that Hungarian is in the Ob-Ugric branch, and not an Finno-Ugric branch of the Ugric family.

The corner stones of the alternatives are, that they decline the nature of the ground layers connections pointing towards Finno-Ugric languages, debate the direction of 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 could have been Hungarian. The important language characteristics the Finno-Ugric theory was raised upon turn out in force only in the Hungarian language anyway. The diminutives are only one case among many; 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 the –d and the –ny, are also present.

When declared as ground layers, the different attributes of the Hungarian language can be connected with other languages as well.

Hungarian-Turk (Turan) theory

The theory of the Hungarian-Turk language relation brings up the 19th-century researches of Ármin Vámbéry. The theory claims that Hungarian belongs to the Altaic language family: in particular, it is closely related to the Turk and Hunnic languages. The Altaic language family embraces Turkic or Turk (Uyghur, Kyrgyz, Ottoman Turkish, Cuman etc.), Mongolian, Manchu, Hunnic, and Avar languages, among others, but some people consider the Finno-Ugric languages as distant relatives. In this sense, one can speak about Uralic-Altaic languages, where Uralic stands for the Finno-Ugric languages. Pros for this theory—beside the structural, grammar and some vocabular similarities of the languages—are the Inner Asian ties of the Hungarians, their Turanian cultural connections, the parallelism in music, ethnography and lifestyle, also the traditional historical Hun-Hungarian identity.

Sumerian-Hungarian language theories

The Sumerian-Hungarian language relation has been studied since the discovery of the Sumerian language, but the theory was not by proposed by Hungarians. It was raised by the first describers of the Sumerian language, who were thinking in a very wide Sumerian-Turanic-Altaic language unit. The relation of the two languages is still researched, with different methods, mainly by Hungarians abroad. It is the effect of the basic methodological issue raised by Finnugrists, who claim that the only scientific way to study language progression is to use language examination based on systematical sound correspondence. The majority of the alternative theories disapprove the possible universal use of this method, and highlight other language-changing features.

Kabardian-Hungarian language relation

Linguist Gábor Bálint de Szentkatolna was the first to systematize and represent this theory, who on his travels to the Caucasus figured, that Hungarian is 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 merged with the other nomadic people migrating to Europe, but part of them stood in the Caucasus region, and later another part of them returned 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, but 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. He didn't excluded the Ugric impact: his opinion was, that the tribe of the Sabir people who joined Hungarians - mentioned by Purple-born Constantine (szabartoiaszfaloi) - is such a tribe. The biggest mistake among the major mistakes in his theory is, that he handled Kabardian as a fully isolated language, claiming that it changed very little, thus ignored the fact of language evolution. This was his logic conclusion, and is understandable if you mind, that Kabardian - in the age of the linguist - was not a written language, and most of its words are still monosyllabic, thus Bálint's etymological derivations might actually be relevant. His work was forgotten after the 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.

Etruscan-Hungarian language relation

The newest theory that received spotlight was the Etruscan-Hungarian theory, raised on the research of Italian linguist Mario Alinei. Rather speaking about an Etruscan-Hungarian language relation, Alinei actually claims that Etruscan belongs to the Finno-Ugric family, and finally concludes that its closest relative is the Hungarian.

The similarity goes beyond simple modal concord, and applies to the writing system and to the articulation as well.

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[3] – / – – –
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

Similarity might as well have different origins. See: etruszk ábécé#Betűik.

Theory of the ancient language

Ancient language research is a recent study. It has two main directions. One direction studies the so-called Nostratic languages. This holds nothing special towards Hungarain, because it by-passes Hungarian, or studies it only through reconstructed Finno-Ugric words. [forrás?]

The other direction derives from the word bush- or root linguistics. According to this theory, the integrated word bushes of the Hungarian language would not exist, with the assumed scale of post combinations. The Integrated word bush systems run through the language organically. Supporters of this theory claim that the official Hungarian linguistics deny this simple fact, and ignore the method of inner reconstruction (used abroad) and ignore the Czuczor-Fogarasi dictionary, what they consider as basic work. The fragments of these bush systems can partly be found in different languages, but most of them are in ruins, at least none of them is as whole as in Hungarian. The loan words, taken from other languages either striked root, and were pulled in to the same meaning-circle as the corresponding root, or were only used in a specific field, or were spilled out from the language. These bush systems - as the result of loaning bigger amount 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), Hungarian language either developed together with an artificial language (a constructed ’lingua franca’, like the esperanto), or – respecting the iconic pictures, hiding in the roots – it developed together with the development of the human mind. And when the human mind and culture developed, the language developed with them, and word bushes grew around the basic concepts. According to this theory, the clearest form of the ancient language - that developed with mankind - was preserved in the language that we call Hungarian today. They assume, that - culturally speaking - ancient Hungarians were the transmitters, rather than the receivers of this knowledge and its words, or at least they adopted it extremely successful. Also this means pre-Hungarians are living in and around the Carpathian Basin longer than suspected. The followers of this latter theory feel approved by the newer discoveries of genetics, archeology, human science, folk music comparing science, folk art (in wider meaning, the carried elements of the folk-civilization), writing history, and even by linguistic researches opposing the Finno-Ugric guidelines.

Criticism of the alternative theories

Criticism from the national identity

According to the critics (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. The welcome of Finno-Ugric language relation was disapproval since the birth of the theory. Accordant to Rédei this happened because the theory's anti-national and political purpose is obvious.[4]

Criticism of the methodology

Among the deniers of the theory you can witness the negation of the widely used historical linguistic methods. An example: they work with the modern, vulgar version of Hungarian, take the similarities as solid proofs, and ignore the lack or presence of the systematical sound correspondence. He says, that followers of the Finno-Ugric theory calim, that the reason why the systematical sound correspondence can be used on Hungarian language without reserve, is because it was already successfully used on other languages (mainly on Germanic).

The comparative science was born in the 19th century, and declared that we should inspect the systematical 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 are both changing in the languages, that's why linguists and official skeptics would suspect loanwords, and not relation, when experiencing too much correspondence. In contrary, systematical difference can only be explained with the common origin of the examined word set.

Supporters of the alternative theories negate the accidental existence of the more hundred similarities, and claim that identical phonetics and correspondent meaning at the same time are no coincidences. One of the main principles of these theories is that language families were born through aerial language equalization, but the possibility of loanwords is not something that stands against the theory, that's exactly what supports the theory.

Supporters of the alternative theories claim, that the systematical sound correspondings can not be witnessed in all of the languages, so they can not be generalized. That is the reason no one objected, when people made far reaching conclusions by comparing the word roots of the more than four thousand years extinct Eblaite language, and today's Hebrew and Arabic. They pair up the name "Ebla" itself with the Arabic "ablā" (means ’white rock’).[5] They say, the word comparison only blows the fuse when it is used on Hungarian language history, and other uses are accepted methods. They claim that both the Indo-European and Finno-Ugric language families were raised on the common word set.[forrás?]

Difficulties in using certain theories

The Turk relation is supported by archaeology. According to Finnugrists, in the Turk languages the circle of relatable words is farther from the so-called basic word set (what linguists primary study when comparing), than in the Finno-Ugric languages. However the definition of the "basic word set" is subjective. According to the Finno-Ugric theory, the words relatable with Finno-Ugric languages are more elementary, more basic, belong to a more primitive meaning circle, than the words relatable with Turk languages. The merely 500 Finno-Ugric words from the Hungarian language can only be a fragment of a basic word set, and the majority leads in to a Turk or other not Finno-Ugric circle, even in to Indo-European. By itself, the theory of the basic word set is unable to show relation even within Indo-European languages. For example, the majority of the Indo-European languages share the word for ’iron’. They concluded, that the Indo-European language unity still existed in the Iron Age. In turn the word ’milk’ is not common, however it existed long before the Iron Age. The common ’feet’ fits well in to the basic word set, but ’hand’ is not shared. They seriously considered the northern origin of the Indo-European family when searching parallelism of the Germanic ’lox’ (salmon) and the German ’Lachs’ words (Hungarian ’lazac’). This is forced, utopian language jugglery used by the Indo-European linguists while accusing supporters of the alternative theories doing the same. That's why the basic word set theory method cannot be viewed without vindication and restrictions. What stands by the Turk-Hungarian language relation, is that it uses almost the same comparative methods, as used by Finnugrists. Those methods are widely questioned today.

The relation between the Altaic languages is negated among today's linguists, however it was accepted in the past for a long time. The Altaic classification of the Manchurian, Hunnic and Avar languages is especially questionable. In approx. 100 B.C. Sima-Qian wrote about the Huns in the 110th book of his 130 volume work (themed: History of China and the surrounding folks). Scientist commonly believe that the language of the Huns is an extinct Old Turk language, and according to Byzantine chronicles, Avars are the descendants of the Huns.

Maybe the most serious methodical error of the studies made on the origins the Sumerian language, that they did not study the earliest Hungarian language relics, instead they use the current, 20th-21st century state of Hungarian. For further information check the Sumerian-Hungarian language relation page. Maybe this identifiable language similarity only proves, that the Hungarian language changed more slowly, than Indo-European languages that work with regular voice change.

Deniers of the word bush (Ancient language) their point that the theory is not scientifically provable. The supporters usually forgot to mention the fact, that the most scenic and flawlessly working form of the "word bush system", that excludes desultory relating, is the essential three letter root system, that can be found in the Semitic, in wider sense in the Afroasiatic language family, and not in Hungarian. Its not mentioned, that the root system is not a special, new or newly founded linguistic attribute, but a "linguistic constant", what can basically be found in almost every language.[6] You can 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. A shining example is 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 ultimate in all of the elements. The root research of the Hungarian language started in the 19th century, János Fogarasi and Gergely Czuczor issued an Academic big-dictionary, just to be expelled by the research of the Finno-Ugric theory, raised after the birth of the Indo-German language theory. Since then, the Hungarian root research ceased to exist. You find Akkadian related words and words with Akkadian origin in all the Finno-Ugric and the Indo-European languages. The same Akkadian words prevailed in today's semitic languages.[7]

The arguments of the alternative theories are not in sync with the current scientific methodology, and that is why some linguists, and even few who oppose Finno-Ugric theory neglect them. This shows, that the documentary of linguistics will still have major role in the next decades. It can help everyone to decide, what arguments should be represented in scientific linguistic methodology. But also linguistics has to think, are the adapted methods the only effective methods, isn't the method of systematical phoneme denotation only a smaller part of a universal theory, that was only canonized based on the first Germanic sound shifts, and wasn't this the source, of smaller bigger mistakes we witnessed in some of the language theories?

References

  1. ↑ http://menadoc.bibliothek.uni-halle.de/ssg/content/pageview/779095
  2. ↑ Töriblog.hu - Hamis-e a nemzetvesztő Trefort-idézet?
  3. ↑ az etruszk ábécé
  4. ↑ Bereczki Gábor: Őstörténetünk kérdései
  5. ↑ Bermant, Chaim – Weitzmann, Michael.
  6. ↑ 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.
  7. ↑ Komoróczy Géza (2009.). "Új és régi – Mezopotámia az i. sz. 1. évezred első felében". Ókor VIII (2), 3-7. o.

Further information

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