Re: Is Magyar/Hungarian really Uralic?

On Mon, 13 May 2002, Danny Wier wrote:

> http://tmajlath.tripod.com/index.html
>
> Not too long ago we were discussing proto-languages, Nostratic, and possible
> links between English, Chinese and Quechua or what not. I found this website
> that *specualtes* on the true origin of much of Hungarian's vocabulary (it
> doesn't claim that Hungarian is the mother of all languages, and it does
> come with an appropriate disclaimer). Mostly Indo-European and Altaic is
> cited, as is a lot of Sumerian, but a few words from Sino-Tibetan and
> Quechua (!) also appear.
>
Ah, the "Hungarian is Sumerian" debate rears its ugly head again. Most of
what I've read on the subject is rather superficial - there is only one
book which can be considered as having any real value (IMO its value lies
in disproving the theory).

If we look at the very basics, Hungarian is a Uralic language. The large
number of IE and Altaic-originned words are present because the Magyars
were a nomadic people and during their long, loop-journey from the Urals
to Pannonia via the Caucasus and southern Ukraine exposed them to many IE
and Altaic languages. Probably there were also groups of IE and Altaic
speakers who were assimilated into the Magyars too.

Some may disagree with what I wrote above, but this is what I consider to
be the closest to reality based on what I have read and deducted from my
own work, and I have yet to read anything convincing enough to change my
mind.

Much of the Hungarian writings supporting the "Hungarian is Sumerian" or
"Hungarian is Altaic" theories seem to be based on something like
"Hungarians are a great nation, therefore we must be related to great
nations like the Turks or the Sumerians and not to northern fishermen and
reindeer-herders".

---ferko

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