Is the Hungarian Language Sumerian?

Thanks!! I should thank you too as I have found some very interesting things about language evolution, ancient migrations and stuff like that which I will follow more in the days to come. It seems that in absence of material evidence, linguistic evidence is the closest thing we have to support theories about origins of people groups and migrations.

reply to post by Skyfloating


Hello,

First of all, Sorry for the late post. I think this is a very controversial topic, since almost all written western and eastern sources before the founding the hungarian state (~1000 AD) contradict eachother.

I'll post some references, but they are in hungarian, so I translate the referring lines as good as I can. About 99% of the sources on this subject will be in hungarian, it's highly unlikely that you'll find any valuable material in english.

1. External Source Link - Huns and Magyars (in hungarian)

This is the mainstream point of view:

A rokonságot következő nyelvekre korlátozzák: 1. magyar, manysi (más néven vogul) hanti (ostiak) – együttesen ,ugor’ nyelvek, ezek lennének legközelebbi nyelvrokonaink; 2. udmurt (vótiak), komi (zürjén), erza és moksa (mordvin), mari (cseremisz), szame (lapp), szuomi (finn), esti (észt), karjalai együttesen a ,permi ág’ nyelvei és 3. egészen távoli rokon a szamojéd nyelv. E megállapításhoz ezt a következtetést fűzik: “… eszerint a magyart… a finnugor nyelvrendszer, a finnugor nyelvcsalád tagjának, finn-ugor nyelvnek kell tekinteni” (188m. 3).

#translation#

The relationship is restricted to these languages:
1. magyar, mansi (alias Vogul), Khanty - otherwise 'ugor' languages, these are the closest related.
2. udmurt, komi, erzyaand moksha, mari, sami, suomi, estonian, karelian are the 'permi' languages.
3. Very distant relatives are the samoyedic languages. The researchers add: "because of these relations, the hungarian language has to be a part of the Finno-Ugric language family"

The inofficial point of view:

A nem hivatalos iskolához tartozó nyelvészek azonban észrevették, hogy a magyar nyelv a török nyelvekkel is igen közeli rokonságban áll, sőt ezenkívül egyes ókori nyelvek is, mint például a mezopotámiai szumér, vele nagyon közeli – a finnugornál erősebb – rokonságban állnak. Ezért ,finnugor’ elnevezés nem kielégítő, nem találó és nem is tartható fenn jogosan. Továbbmenőleg, ha a magyar nyelv valóban ennyire régi, régibb mint a finnugor nyelv, akkor mégiscsak idioma primogenitum lehet, miből örököltek a finnugor népek, török népek és mások is! Vagyis helyesen nem ,finnugor’ nyelvekről kellene beszélnünk, hanem ,magyar’ nyelvekről, melyek eredeti formáját egyedül mi, mai magyarok tartottuk fenn, akik az ősi nevet is viseljük és a rokonnyelvek a mi nyelvünk leszármazói.

.. continued in the next post

Manitou means God,
in both Hungarian and Ojibwa

Hmmm
I had a proof for this at one time, but while looking for a proof here I can't find one on several online dictionaries, so for the time being,
I'm going to say I might be incorrect.
the Hopi languages the linguists say are Sumerian related

[edit on 3-6-2010 by Danbones]

[edit on 3-6-2010 by Danbones]

reply to post by nooyb


#translation#

Language researchers who support the non official version say, that the hungarian is also closely related to turkic, and to some very ancient languages like sumerian therefor the term "finno-ugric" is not adequate. Moreover, if the hunarian is really so ancient, older than finno-ugric, then it has to be "idioma primogenitum" afterall, and there has to be some heritage in finno-ugric, turkic too. We shouldn't talk about "magyar" rather than "finno-ugric", which is spoken in it's original form by us, hungarians, who still have the original name, and the related languages descended from this.

Some contradictions about the origins:

..egy egészen civilizálatlan népséget, minden magasabb kötelék nélkül élő embercsoportokat, szanaszét kóborló bandákat tüntet fel, amelyek termelő tevékenységet nem folytattak, nem ismerték a földművelést és nem volt állattenyésztésük sem, hanem csupán parazita életet éltek: halásztak, vadásztak és a természet önmagától nyújtott javait gyűjtögették, ahogy ők mondják “a vadság felső fokán éltek”

#translation#

.. depict hungarians as uncivilized folks, without any bounds to the land, wandering around, who don't produce anything, don't cultivate the land and have no stock-raising, they lived as parasites: as fishers and hunters and gatherd what the nature has given them, as they say: "lived on the highest degree of wilderness".

Then it says:

Ez a megállapítás annyira nem illik a későbbi láncszemekbe, hogy eredményükön maguk a finnugor nyelvészek is meglepődtek. Más céhbeliek a közös, vagyis finnugor alapszavak közé sorolják az ilyeneket is, mint Ház, Fal, Ágy, Kenyér, amelyek vitathatatlanul kultúrszavak, helyben lakást, mezőgazdálkodást és nem kóborlást tételeznek fel (188m. 7 sk). Ezért a vadságra vonatkozó megállapításukhoz ezt a kiegészítést fűzik: ,,A kutatás ezen a téren még közel sem mondta ki az utolsó szót” (7m. 32).

#translation#

These statements doesen't fit into the picture, even to the astonishment of the finno-ugric linguists, because they classify words as Ház, Fal, Ágy, Kenyér (house, wall, bed, bread) as finno-ugric cultural words, which presume settlements and agricultire and not wild wanderers. Therefore they add to their statements: "these researches are not finished yet".

Please use google translate to look into the source: link

.. continued in the next post

[edit on 3-6-2010 by nooyb]

I've done some reading on this in the past. I'm of Hungarian descent and am curious out the origins of the Hungarians. Here are a couple of links I found on this subject. I had them bookmarked, but I am going to have to read them again.

www.imninalu.net...

users.cwnet.com...

www.hunmagyar.org...


I also found this interesting.
Tribe of Hungarian Origin Discovered in Africa
www.pr.com...

reply to post by virraszto

This is all very interesting.
I see that your hunmagyar.org link favours the idea that the northern steppes were colonised from Sumeria.

But what about the possibility that the movement was the other way round- i.e. that the Sumerian part of the language group, if they were part of that group, travelled south from the Steppes to the location where history finds them?

The route could have been- Black Sea region- escaping the flooding at the end of the Ice Age by moving south onto the mountain plateau region- moving along the western edge of the Iranian plateau down to the coast- then moving west along the coast to enter later Sumeria from the east.

Their folk memory would then include a flood as well as a stay in the region where the four rivers mentioned in the Eden story originated.

reply to post by nooyb


2. External Source Link - Written historical evidence

Az írásos forrásokban először a X. században tűnnek fel a magyarok. Ekkor figyeltek fel rájuk, önálló népként a görög és az arab történetírók, híres utazók.

Az első görök feljegyzések az 830-as évek eseményeinél ungroi (ungrok), unnoi (hunok)és turkoi (türkök) néven említik a magyarokat, majd általánossá vált a türk név használata. Még a XI. században is Magyarország neve így látható a Szent Koronán görög írással:„Geiza Turkia hívő királya."

#translation#

Hungarians are mentioned in written chronicles for the first time around the 10th century, when greek and arabian chroniclers make a note about hungarian people.

The first greek record is from 830, and calls hungarians as ungroi, unnoi and turkoi, but then the name turk became common. Even in the 11th century, Hungary's name is written in the Holy Crown in greek scripture:"Geza the believer king of Turkia"

Another name is "sabir", with relations to Avars and Huns.

Bíborban született Konstantin római (bizánci) császár a nála járt magyar főemberektől értesült arról, hogy a magyarok egyik csoportja, mely a Kaukázus vidékére költözött„rendíthetetlen szabíroknak" nevezték.

#translation#

Constantine VII has been informed by hungarian cheftains, that "a hungarian tribe of insistent Sabirs moved to the Kaukasus".

Historical sources, which can be used in the research are:

Öt nagyobb külföldi forráscsoportot említhetünk és idézhetünk a magyarság eredete,vándorlása, társadalma bemutatására:

1. Muszlim: arab, perzsa, török nyelvű írások
2. Görög nyelvű írásos művek
3. Szláv nyelvű források
4. Latin nyelvű krónikák, évkönyvek
5. Német nyelvű emlékek

#translation#

There are 5 foreign source groups, which can be referred to in the presentation:
1. Muslim: arab, persion, turkic
2. Greek
3. Slavic
4. Latin
5. German

The source in google translate: link


An english source: The Early History of the Hungarian Ethnic Designations
(edit: as I see "virraszto" has already posted this link, so credits to him/her)

In the 9th century the Byzanteen Greek emperor and historian Constantin Porpurogenitos following his meeting with the Hungarian prince Termatzu from Arpad's clan writes that the oldest name of the Hungarians, was Sabartoi Asphali, recalling their ancient Mesopotamian name Subar-tu and Sabir-ki. Asphali was the Arab name of the lower Zab river. However before the coming of the Khazars the Sabirs lived in a large area west of the Caspean Sea up to the Caucasus mountains. There were also Hungarians living there also as recorded in early Armenian documents.

I've just checked the google translate pages, and it seems that it's quite bad at translating hungarian to english, sorry about that. If you need help please send a message, and I'll try to help.

Have a nice day!




[edit on 3-6-2010 by nooyb]

reply to post by Navieko

May I ask what your opinions are on the following: Link

Hi Navieko,

I've heard about Juan Moricz and his finds in Cueva de los Tayos, and this is very interesting, but most of them are theories and hearsay, without any tangible proof it remains one of the contradicting theories among many others.

reply to post by Skyfloating


The earliest references to this area appear to be as Dacia and the Dacians were completely wiped out by Trajan which is recorded on Trajan's column.

Considering this was genecide is there any record of the dacian language and was this similar to hungarian ?

I confess I have not investigated the languages of either Sumeria or Hungary but I suspect other posters here have so I will not go over ground already well trod.

Would there not be any clues in religion if similarities could be found here then the idea might have more merit.

Originally posted by Skyfloating
After reading this PDF on Hungarian, Sumerian and Mongolian being related languages Im a little confused. "Official Sources" say that there is no relation between Sumerian and Hungarian "whatsoever".

True. They've different origins.

More than 55% of the words of the three languages are identical or very similar.

No they aren't (unless I'm mistaken about each language having over 15,000 distinct words).

But the connection to Sumeria is denied in all but fringe publications.

They aren't as strict about types of acceptable evidence as other types of publications.

If there is some cover-up going on here?

No, but there is a tiresome "word list matching." The truth is that given several large and complex languages of 60,000 words or so and given that the human mouth can only make a limited number of signs, you can "relate" ANY language to any other language as long as it has a sufficient number of words. You can probably relate Klingon to native tribal languages in India if you look hard enough.

Linguists look, instead, for root words, sentence structure, and other things. Word lists are considered "lame" by non-alternative sources. So the relationship of Hungarian to Finnish is a good link. The relationship of ancient Egyptian to Coptic is a good link.

The relationship of Sumerian to Hungarian is not, and the scripts, I'm afraid, aren't even very similar.

(and before I make myself look TOO much like an idiot, I did indeed look him up on Google Scholar. As he's gotten older, he's gotten extremely nationalistic and is publishing material suggesting that Hungarian, Vietnamese, and Sumerian are also all related. His views aren't well accepted, even by his peers (very few citations on the article, and almost all of the citations are him citing himself.) Even his publication on the Raetic language is cited only by himself.)

(The only thing I see by him that's cited by several other people is his paper on semiotics and film, and even that one's only cited by 3-4 people. His mathematical work on semiotics hasn't managed to convince anyone enough that they use it.)

(That said, there is undoubtedly one common origin for all languages BUT it's so far back and so elementary that it can't be teased from the background noise of 100,000 years of jabbering at each other.)

My books are mostly packed away (moving to NM), so I can't check, but a cursory look at the old Magyar alphabet puts me in mind of runes, the ancient Indus script, and the rongo-rongo of Easter Island, all at the same time. Wild.

Originally posted by Byrd

No, but there is a tiresome "word list matching."

We've had this disagreement elsewhere before. "Normal use" Vocabulary is not 15 000 or 30 000 or 60 000, it is around 2000-3000 words.

Your idea might be valid if we could find the same similarities between say Mongolian and Russian or Mongolian and Vietnamese, but we cant.

reply to post by Skyfloating


The idea is ridiculous, full of anachronisms. Huns arrived in Europe at around a few hundred years B.C. at earliest, while Mongols set foot in East Europe during the late Dark Ages. Sumer, as a civilization, disappeared at least a thousand years before. The closest people to Sumer were the Babylonians, Assyrians and Egyptians... none of which have much to do with Huns, who were purported to be from the Caucasus region. It's likelier that the Huns are linked to the Han Chinese than Sumer, for that matter... Turks were found to descent from northern China, even from the ancient Mu civilization located around Japan (what Ataturk believed), that would'nt be so far-fetched that the Huns came from the Far East as well.

And what's your thing with the Hungarians? Why not the Ukrainians, or the Finnish? They were much older in Europe.

reply to post by Echtelion

You state a lot of things as facts, yet you show no source for you information.
Just say'n !

The Hungarians
It is also true that the Hungarians of today look European.But their
roots are Mongolic.

From Britannica Languages of the world)
"Racially the Uralic people present an unhomogeneous picture.In
general
they may be considered
a bland of Europeans and Mongoloid types,with the more western
groups(especially the Hungarians,Baltic-Finnic and Erzya Mardvin
groups)
being strongly European and those of the Urals primarily Mongoloid".
From " De Administrado Imperio"by Constantine Porphyrogenitus
(Byzantine
Emperor,950AD)
"These eight clans of the TURKS(Hungarians) do not obey their own
particular princes...,They
have for their first chief the prince who comes by succession of
Arpad's
family..."
From The Hungarian Chronicle(1095AD):
"We (Hungarians) are descendants of the great Huns of Attila".
From "The Mongols" By Jeremiah Curtin
"Five groups of Mongols have made themselves famous in Europe:The
Huns
with their mighty chief Attila,the Magyars,The Turks or Osmanli,the
Mongol
invaders of Russia..."
From "The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire" By Edward Gibbon.
"The(Hungarians) are distinguished by the Greeks under the proper and
peculiar name of Turks,
as descendants of that people who had conquered and reigned form China
to
the Volga (referring to the Mongols)".
Gaspar Heltai (1575)
"The huns, who we call now Magyars, when they lived in Scythia they were all hunters" At 373 they started to fled from Scythia and arrived to Pannonia where they settled near the river Tisza"
The most interesting source about the Hunnic descendance of the Magyars is Mahmud Tercüman's codex. He wrote it to the turkish sultan Suleiman the first at 1543 AD.
Tercüman gave us a very detailed history how the Huns became Magyars, how they invaded europe and how they settled to Pannonia later on in a second wave. He gave us direct continuity between Attila and later kings of Hungary, who he consider as one royal dinasty, and its exactly what the older codexes wrote about.
From "The Cambridge Medieval History" edited by J.H.Hussey.
"The form ovyypoi,from which are derived the various names current to
this
day among the people of Europe(Old Church Slavonic,UGRI;
Russian,VENGRI;German,UNGARN;English,HUNGARIANS;French,HONGROIS;Italian,UN
GHERESI,and so on)comes from the Turkic ethnic name ONOGUR meaning
TEN
OGUR"
From "The Thirteenth Tribe" by Arthur Koestler.
"We also hear of a fearful encounter which St.Cyril,the Apostle of
the
Slav,had with a Magyar horde in 860,on his way to Khazaria.He was
saying
his prayers when they rushed at him luporum more ululantes-HOWLING IN
THE
MANNER OF WOLVES".
From "Britannica"(Languages of the world).
"Recent study indicates that it is posible to speak of a Uralic
racial
type,an intermediate stage between the European and the Mongoloid,the
basic features of which are medium-dark to dark hair and eye
colour,relatively small stature and often a concave bridge of the
nose".
(Hungary is part of Uralic racial type).
From "Britanica" Hungarian.
"The proto-Hungarians were apparently an ethnic blend of
Ugric(Mongoloid)
and Turkish peoples living in western Siberia...The Hungarians were
the
scourge of Europe,raiding as far afield as Bremen,Orleans and
Constantinople(the English word OGRE-a men eating man,hideous cruel
man,is
a corruption of HUNGAR,attests to their notoriety).
From "1000 years of Hungary" By Emil Lengyel.
"(Hungarian) Folklore speaks about NIMROD the giant,who had two
sons,HUNOR
and HAGAR.The former was the ancestor of the HUNS,and MAGOR was the
ancestor of the MAGYARS."
"The experience the Magyars left with the Western world was so
traumatic
that even generations later people form the West saw the Hungarians
as
apocalyptic monsters. Bishop Otto of Freysing spoke of the exterior of
the
Hungarians as ‘ferocious' at the time of the Crusades Their eyes
are
sunken,their stature is short,their behavior wild,their language
barbarous,so that one can either accuse fate or marvel at divine
patience
for having permitted these monsters the possession of an enchanting
land)".
From "History of Hungary" By Denis Sinor
"Though, geographically speaking, of European origin, the Hungarians
who
settled in the Danube valley were,spiritually and materially,
Asiatics,
and belonged to the great Central Euroasiatic cultural family whose
members lived dispersed form the Danube to China, from Persia and
India to
the Arctic. The Hungarian bows and arrows...were of exactly the same
type
as those used in Central Asia. As nomadic peoples generally do, the
Hungarians disliked towns,and even houses,to which they preferred
tents.
According to Otto von Freisingen, as late as the middle of the
twelfth
century, summer and autumn were still spent under tents".
"It is, however quite certain that the Mongoloid type was well
represented
among them (Hungarians), and that they were, on the whole, of rather
short
stature, with short legs, bowed through continuous riding".
From George Kedrenos (12th century).
(Describing the events which took place in 895).
"The Emperor had sent the Patrician Skllerous to the Turks WHO were
CALLED
Hungarians
(Oungroi) to convince them to cross the Danube and attack the
Bulgarians..."
(At this time the Hungarians used to live somewhere near Bug river,in
a
place called Etel-Kuzu).
From John Zonnaras (12th century).
(Describing the events of 895).
"The Emperor convinced the Turks who lived near Danube and who ARE
CALLED
Hungarians
(Oungroi) to start war against the Bulgars".

I was born in Budapest, but was smuggled out as an infant. I am currently a U.S. citizen, working as a Geography professor (Cultural, World Regional, and GIS).

Although this thread is fascinating, and I am unable to academically validate or refute much that has been presented here without a substantial amount of research I presently do not have time for, I can tell you this:

As a youngster growing up, I would often listen-in on my elders discussing the "old country", Magyar heritage, origins, and the global migration that have now spread Hungarians to every remote corner of the world.

It was frequently lamented that various conquerors and other circumstances of historical significance (being on the 'wrong-side of regional and global conflicts, the assassination and subsequent demise of the Austro-Hungarian empire, etc.) have resulted in a current distribution wholly unpredicted and unexpected. Significantly, various cultural and intellectual (mathematical, scientific, literary, etc.) resources were "preserved", purposefully, so that the purity of the ethnicity and anthropomorphic paradigm would be maintained even though the political and territorial "roots" were slowly being diluted.

On more than one occasion, I can recall an uncle, grandfather, or other elder relative say something to the effect that "...our Sumerian ancestors would be proud", or that "...we must continue the goals and ideals of the Mesopotamian ancients for eternity".

I always found such comments amusing and usually rolled my eyes, thinking these profound utterances were just the Palinka or Tokaji (liquor) talking. It was just entertaining to me to hear them speak like that. We used to do a lot of family camping with other Hungarian friends and relatives, and it seems these 'men-folk' would do a lot more of this chatter around a campfire late at night with a little brandy-fuel as lip-lubricant than they ever did in the confines of their homes. There was nothing I enjoyed more than lying awake in my tent listening to this talk through the canvas to the fire-ring a few feet away.

Anyway - not sure how much of this stuff was genuine and how much was 'old guys reminiscing' - but this thread sure brought some of those memories flooding back in.

P.S. thanks for all the links and opinions here (OP et al). If nothing else, they provide starting points to further information and analysis. I hope the truth about this intriguing origin story will eventually be known...