Alternative theories of Hungarian language origins

Although the Hungarian language is currently widely acknowledged scientifically and by the Hungarian Academy of Sciences as a member of the Uralic language family, there is a history of other theories from before and after the Uralic connection was established, as well as some fringe theories that continue to deny the connection.

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

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. The historian Henrik Marczali, linguist Károly Pozder, linguist József Thúry,^[2][3][4] anthropologist Aurél Török, and many other scientists supported Vámbéry.^[5]

The Finno-Ugrist Pál Hunfalvy ^{[de; eo; hu]} widened the front of the "Ugric-Turk War" with his book "Magyarország ethnographiája.",^[6] 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.",^[7] and published in 1882, Vámbéry went a step further, and presented a newer version of his theory, in which he claimed that the Hungarian nation and language are 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.

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. Turanist scientists did not write such things about the Finno-Ugric peoples, and Vámbéry and his followers mentioned these kins 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.^[8]

Vámbéry held to his scientific theory about the mixed origin of the Hungarian language and people until 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 evidence was the large corpus of ancient Turkish words in Hungarian word stock (300-400 for a minimum, and even more with good alternative Turkic etymologies),^[9] 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. Some scientists^[who?] questioned seriously even the existence of Uralic as a valid language family, and attention turned towards the complex areal relations and interactions of Eurasian languages (Uralic and Altaic languages included). In light of these developments, linguists have started to pay due credit to Vámbéry and his work.^{[10][11][12][13][14]}

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,^{[clarification needed]} 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 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.

Linguist Gábor Bálint de Szentkatolna was the first to systematize and represent 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 the lingual side but from 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 descendants, 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 (which 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 did not exclude the Ugric impact, as he thought 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").