I do not claim this essay to be scientific. I do not aim so high as innumerable expert studies have turned out or, more precisely, have been detected not to be scientific at all, by now. In the lack of written sources, linguists do not accept any genetic, archaeological or logical conclusion, apart from their own ones, about the formation and/or proliferation of languages under the pretext that no evidence can support them. From the discovered signs and scripts, they formulate phonological changes and reconstructed words. Hypotheses that do not conform with the prevailing view are considered as misread, unprofessional experiments or serving for chauvinist interests. They endeavour to muzzle or ridicule them, mostly with success.

My writings generally deal with name analyses, genealogy and the related history. The subject matter would also require some linguistic knowledge. My view on the development and proliferation of the Hungarian language is specific but neither new nor unique, and does not coincide with what is taught as 'decent' curriculum; it is closer to a scientific area that is still considered as marginal today.

Several people have conducted investigations in this direction but none of them have managed to make it a success. Internationally-renowned American anthropologist Grover S. Krantz (1931-2002), a professor at the University of could be mentioned as an example, who wrote the following in his work Geographical Development of European Languages (p 72., New York 1988.):- „According to most authorities the original Uralic homeland was in the Ural Mountain area, hence the name. From this central location these people supposedly spread out in all directions to reach their present distribution, and entered Hungary in 896 A.D.

I find all of this highly improbable for various reasons. A geographically central location is no evidence that this is the original site of a language group. The reason for its spread must be demonstrated — it cannot be assumed to have expanded automatically, and equally, in all directions. The penetration of central Europe in the 9th century by a northern Asian tribe is possible. But a population replacement, or even a language change, by such a tribe within a well-populated agricultural region like Hungary at that time is clearly impossible. Any such claim should be accompanied by an explanation of the mechanism whereby this change might have been accomplished.

Given these objections the actual Uralic-speaking distributions would allow only one alternative explanation — that the family originated in Hungary and spread out in the opposite direction. This poses no serious problem if the time for this origin and dispersion is put at the earliest Neolithic (i.e. farming). If this is true it means that Hungarian (Magyar) is actually the oldest in-place language in all of Europe. To test this idea it must be shown here that the present Uralic distributions can follow automatically from a Hungarian source, and this must be done through the consistent application of logical rules of population movements. It must also be shown that the subdivisions of Uralic are distributed in reasonable conformity with these rules”.  (Highlighted by author). 

However, there are professionals even today who share similar principles. That is clear, inter alia, from an interview made in 2016 with László Marácz, a linguist born in the Netherlands (professor at the University of Amsterdam):- ”The history of Hungarian language mostly relies on contacts, like every language it has its core and it obviously got in a lot of contacts with other languages, especially in the Central Asian steppe area. I consider the links between Ob-Ugric Mansi (Vogul) and Hungarian as typically such linguistic relations. The Ob-Ugric is a typical Paleo-Siberian language but they were exposed to contact with people who spoke a language close to Hungarian.” “…I do not think that the Finnish language would be the genetic ancestor of our language. Slavic and Germanic people can understand each other even today, which presumes close relations, but Hungarians cannot communicate with speakers of Finno-Ugric languages. The  kinship between Hungarian and Turkic languages is much stronger, and there is also a relation with the Sanskrit”. (http://magyaridok.hu/kultura/lehet-magyarul-gondolkodni-2-1161334/).

I, therefore, think it is useful to sum up my ideas, and following their line of thoughts you will find my name explanations more easily understandable. Some notes on what follows:

From the perspective of its aptitude for exploration, I take a language as a meme having the properties of the light. The different languages are nothing else but different frequencies.  I mean, for example, that the behaviour of a language, and particularly its early, spontaneous proliferation, like that of light, shows a dual property. It was shaped by the groups who spoke the language (corpuses, ethnic groups) on the one hand, and by the environment, traditions, customs, rules, culture and other influencing factors on the other. Similarly to the gene theory applied in genetics, a language behaves in a meme-like manner.  But similarly to the wave-particle duality of the light, the language had corpuscular and field properties during its prehistoric proliferation. Some linguists attributes the lexical and morphological similarities between languages as a genealogical linkage of the language, which corresponds to the corpuscular (e.g. ethnicity-dependant) behaviour while others regards those similarities as consequences of contacts between languages, which verifies their wave nature (effect of substrates, field theory). While there is no temporal feedback on the language family tree, various frequencies may encounter or even resonate with each other, resulting in such consequences as linguistic similarities observable between languages.  

Cultures in contact with each other in every epoch developed a lingua franca which played the role of a vehicular language among residents speaking different mother tongues in a particular geographical area. That language became a 'dead language' over time, there was no need for its widespread use as another language took over that role. If the language has left behind some written records, then it remains researchable for scholars, while if no records have survived, one can know it from various recollections or it disappears forever. Although traces of its impact have subsisted in languages in contact with it, but its extent is hard to demonstrate.  One can bump into some words of the former lingua franca in special areas, in religious texts and at times even in colloquial speech. (See Latin, Greek, Sanskrit, Hebrew, etc. languages).  Those effects do not play an outstanding role in the language family theory although, in my opinion, they can be decisive for certain languages. I think that Hungarian is the vestige of such an intermediary language. The basis of my view is that no language related to today's Hungarian that a native speaker without linguistic education would apprehend has survived. In addition, concluding from the relative stability of our language, we can state that Hungarian, even in its condition at the time of the Hungarian conquest of the Carpathian basin, was an independent European language. Its evolution overarches a longer period of time than neighbouring Indo-European languages do. It has become entirely clear from archaeological and genetic studies that Hungarian prehistory must not be confused with those of Finno-Ugric and Ugric peoples. The survival of linguistic similarities can be easily explained with its role as a vehicular language which does not necessarily presuppose a genetic kinship. The intermediary role of the proto-Hungarian language was significant in the millenia B.C.E. With other link languages appearing in history (Sogdian, Mongolian, Turkic, Persian, Aramaic, Greek, Latin, Germanic, Slavic, etc.), it gradually lost its significance. While it underwent its unique evolution, it left its marks on the languages being in contact with it. (Borrowed words!) But experts already debate or even doubt its role (and existence) on the Pontic-Caspian steppe in the early Middle Ages. (languages of Scythians, Huns, Khazars, Ruses, etc.). While the beginnings in the prehistory of Hungarians as such is disputed and difficult to prove, the presumption that ancient Hungarian language as a meme has existed for thousands of years can be logically admitted. Today, in the middle of the 21^st century, one can witness the formation of an intermediary language (or more) that will have exert influence on spoken languages and, over time, will earn the status of an independent language. All that evolves in the presence of a completely mixed genetic pool, proving the meme-like behaviour of languages. 

Like in history in general, there are no boundaries that would separate epochs in the history of a language. For me, a language is a meme that behaves similarly to a human genome, they have evolved together. Borders are nothing else but aids for investigation. But as such, they have become one of the most important tools of shaping awareness. Most Hungarians in the 20^th century were taught that the Finnish are our relatives. And Sándor Kőrösi Csoma, the world-famous founder of Tibetology was portrayed as an adventurer and scholar chasing romantic dreams who searched for  the Magyars' homeland in Central Asia. (Irrespective of him, some groups of the peoples living there regard Magyars of their closest relative nation.) Uighur, Khanty, Mansi linguists' Uighar/Uighur versus Ungar debate is simply a manoeuvre to divert attention from the point in the battle shaping Hungarians' prehistory. The traces of the Hungarian meme CAN be found here as well as in a lot of places in Eurasia. But this is about the origins of the Hungarians which can be read about in my other writings.

About the Basic Language, from 2000 BC onwards and earlier

The last (Würm) ice age ended in about 15,000 to 12,000 years ago. The Carpathian basic has unique environmental conditions since the thickness of the Earth's crust here is half or one third of the European average. That is why the upward thermal flow from the internal, magmatic environment is very strong which keeps the Pannonian pelvic floor and, thus, the layers settled on it, permanently heated. Which means that 18,000 - 15,000 years ago, humans creating man-made buildings populated the Carpathian basin. Actually, archaeologists did find such remnants on Ságvár-Lukasdomb (hoes, cutting devices, pick axes made of 17,000 - 18,000 year old antlers). ”The Carpathian basin may have preceded the northern areas of Europe by 1,000 or 2,000 years in terms of developing favourable conditions for farming lifestyle. The most important remains of settlements in the Carpathian basin, populated by hunting/ fishing tribes in that era, were explored near Jászberény.” (Wikipedia). But several other habitats also verify that the area was then inhabited: Arka, Dömös, Budapest-Csillaghegy, Dunaföldvár, Balatonőszöd–Temetői dűlő, Szentpéterszeg, Szeged-Öthalom, Madaras, Zalaegerszeg, Lengyel, Bátaszék, Györe, Alsónyék, Újdombóvár, Szarvasd etc.). Those tribes who conducted rudimentary farming and livestock breeding could establish southbound relations towards the Mediterranean See (See Etruscan relations hereafter) as well as towards Asia Minor and Mesopotamia as the ice sheet and the swampland did not allow any other directions. It is supported even by archaeological findings (for instance, it is demonstrated that aurochs were domesticated 6,000 to 8,000 years ago exactly in the mountains surrounding the plains of Hungary. The vessels of linear pottery culture were called for and created to handle the milk from domesticated aurochs. Wikipedia: The history of the Carpathian basin up to its conquest by Hungarians) as well as by genetic studies (the  dispersion of haplogroups R1a1 and R1b1)

It is known that neither genetic nor archaeological investigations can provide information about the languages of peoples before literacy but analyses the history of migrations by comparative study of the currently well-known languages would contribute to understanding the split-up of languages. The relations between the artefacts of ancient Mother Goddess (Ana, Kibele) found in Hungary and the indigenous terms 'mother', 'motherland', 'native country', 'our Mother Goddess', etc. as opposed to the Germanic Vaterland, the patrieval in Frankia and the family of Aesir. (See my analyses of such toponyms as Bél, Bele, Kebele, Cibles).

5000 to 6000 years ago when warming was climaxing, the peoples migrating south-eastbound reached Central Asia and the Urals from the south and west. Judit P. Barna, a Hungarian expert of the topic wrote the following in 2011: ”The Lengyel culture in the late Neolithic and early Copper Ages made a major contribution to shaping the culture in a large part of Central Europe almost throughout the entire 5^th millennium B.C., which manifested itself in the mediation of tangible and intellectual goods between South-eastern- and Central Europe.” (Judit P. Barna: A lengyeli kultúra kialakulása (Development of the Lengyel Culture). Doctoral thesis, 2011) Introduction Linguists named the language spoken by tribes living here as Ural-Altaic in line with artificially established and accepted linguistic rules. Therefore, I kept the term ”Ural-Altaic” in my scheme presenting the evolution of the Hungarian language because Europeans and Asians may have mingled exactly here, in Altai about two-thousand years ago. Genetic studies conducted in 2012 (Catalan Institute of Palaeontology and the Institute of Evolutionary Biology, the UPF - CSIC) suggest that mingling between Europeans and Asians took place on the eastern areas of Altai, and that the contact was established before the Iron Age. Before mingling, the two peoples used to inhabit the two separate sides of the mountain. Frozen, mummified remains discovered between 2005 and 2007 by European and Mongolian researchers (actually, more than twenty graves were excavated) were suitable for performing genetic analyses. The objects and the buried horses found in the graves provided archaeological evidence that they had been Scythians. (ORIGO. Iván Miklós Szegő's article. 14.11.2012.). My derivation starts earlier than year 5000 B.C. but it presumes that this language was spoken by 18,000 years earlier along the migration route mentioned above. (I.e. not only in the Urals and the Altai!). As Krantz also writes: “The Proto-Altaic language was spoken in Hungary as early as a 10000 years ago.”. (Grover S. Krantz: Az európai nyelvek földrajzi kialakulása (Geographical Development of European Languages). Ősi Örökségünk Alapítvány. Budapest, 2000. Chapter Nine - Conclusions. Annex no. 3.)^[1]. More precisely, the author writes on page 187 of the original work: ”That the Uralic language family stemmed from the Mesolithic inhabitants of the Hungarian Plain”. (“That the Uralic language family stemmed from the Mesolithic inhabitants of the Hungarian Plain”.)

 It is highly probable that the direction of peoples' migration was repeatedly altered. Therefore, I do not share the view that a language as a meme would spread solely in a single, determined direction at the beginning of the evolution of languages. When archaeologists detect changes in cultures in a given area, they mostly have a ready-made answer that people X or Y invaded local inhabitants who disappeared or escaped to other territories. That is what must have happened in most cases but the interaction between, and the development of, languages, which was not necessarily accompanied by exchanges of genetic stocks, is a much more important question. Detailed archaeological studies and reinterpretations in recent years also signify that several formerly presumed migration may not necessarily have meant exchange of peoples. What if, for example, if one presupposes that Hungarians did not flee from Pechenegs in the 9^th century but they migrated westward together with them to recover Attila's heritage? I think we could delete a lot of question marks from that period of our past! It could be understood why Hungary turned into the homeland of so many Pecheneg, Jász, Cuman tribes. It is not only that we with our language are an island in Central Europe but the toponyms Jászság and Kunság have survived only here while a complete absorption can be witnessed everywhere else. And our location and family names of Pecheneg origin are innumerable!

The basic language that I call Hungaro-Ugric could be known from the Alps to the Altai. That could be a variant of the common protolanguage (several scholars state that the ancestors of the inhabitants in Europe and Asia spoke a common language 15 thousand years ago). As G. Krantz put it: ”This is how the linguistic studies that find kinship between modern Hungarian and the Sumerians from the ancient Mesopotamia make sense. The smallest and most isolated proto-Ural Altaic language which may have changed the least since its inception in Afghanistan would be on the Hungarian Plain. Sumerian language was written on clay tablets halfway from the place and time of departure. It must not come as surprise that Hungarian and Sumerian are very similar. In contrast to some enthusiastic researchers' statements that an early migration took place between Hungary and Mesopotamia (in one or both directions), the linguistic similarity only lies in that both languages have reserved more of the common ancient language than any other member in this tribe of languages. (Corrections recommended by Krantz in his letter to the translator in March 2000).

Considering that the Old Russian Chronicle (Nestor's manuscript) calls Hungarians Ugric, and that it is the Hungarian out of today's Eurasian languages that has reserved most of the grammatical and ancient etymon resemblances from this language family, the name Hungaro-Ugric (or Magyar-Ugric) looks logical. (NOTE: The Ugric name in Nestor's Chronicle is not identical with Khanty and Mansi peoples' Komi-Zyrian -Yugra name.) That is when ( 5000 B.C to 2000 B.C.) the Indo-European marker words and such related roots as “bel” and “ár”, which I also study, are coined in the course of contacts between languages. (Let me note that the Finnish language lacks such roots!) According to professor Mario Alinei: ”It is in the 3^rd millennium B.C. that Hungarians arrived at their historical territory, the Carpathian basin.”

The aforesaid can explain why written records of the Hungarian language did not derive from the area of the Ural Mountains but from the Carpathian basin (clay tablets from Tatárlaka which could be made about 5,500 B.C.). The Etrusco-Hungarian, Celto-Hungarian and even our earlier, common Sumerian and Akkadian words can also be derived from there. But it can also explain, for instance, why names from Sumerian mythology frequently mentioned in my writings sound Hungarian and why one can find even today geographical names in the territories of the Fertile Crescent that are ”identical with Hungarian”, or the antique toponyms with “sar”, “ar” roots in the Carpathian basin. (Archaeological findings: female and male ”chief gods” from the sloe-hill at Hódmezővásárhely, the clay ”god with sickle” from Szegvár-Tűzköves).

The conclusion that ”the Hungarian language unveils a primaeval kinship with the Sanskrit language” was drawn by several researchers. (Sándor Kőrösi Csoma, Sándor Zsuffa of Nemesdedina). Tivadar Duka lists roughly 250 Sanskrit words in an annex to Körösi Csoma's biography that Sándor Körösi Csoma found  compatible with their Hungarian counterparts. In the preface to this Tibetan dictionary, Sándor Kőrösi Csoma writes that the creation of the Sanskrit language (along with other Indian languages) is extremely parallel with that of Hungarian which, at the same time, differs from Western European languages. The appearance of haplogroup R1a in South India (e.g. among speakers of the Chenchu language that belongs to the Dravidian language group) may have been presupposed on the basis of the predictions by Bálint Gábor of Szentkatolna. In the Dravidian language family (that includes ca. twenty South Indian languages), he found Tamil as the one close to the Hungarian language. It is presumed that the original Dravidian population was a mix of Mediterranean and Asia Minor/ Caucasian peoples and migrated towards India in the 4^th millennium B.C. ”Along their way, they must have got in close and lasting contact with speakers of the Ural Altaic language, which explains the noticeable link between Dravidian and Ural Altaic language groups.” (p. 716, Vol. 22, Encyclopaedia Britannica).

There are linguistic anomalies, too, that hint to it. Let us see, for instance, the etymology of our word “falu” (village). Everything seems to be regular at first sight: “The root fal- in the word is an ancient legacy from the Ugric era : paul in Vogul, pugel in Ostiek, while the ending ”u–v” (falu–falv-ak) is a Hungarian development, most probably a denominal formative suffix. The prosthetic sound change p đ f is regular, see fal, fazék, fél, fog (meaning wall, bowl, half, tooth), etc.”  / Hungarian Etymological Dictionary/. But you can read the following in the WikiSzótár.hu (WikiDictionary): “Origin [falu < Old Hungarian : falu < Ancient Hungarian : falan, falian (falu) < Dravidian: paleiyam, valliyam (falu, “surrounded”) < valei, val (surround)]”, which is in complete conformity with Gábor Bálint's  conclusions about that word. (Gábor Bálint of Szentkatolna: The Hungarian Language in South India. Fríg Kiadó. P. 118) Where it reads palli (village, town, residence), valliyam (pastors' village) in Tamil. “Therefore the words fal, falu (wall, village) is undoubtedly identical with the form fal (wheel-wall), fal-az (surround or fence)”, as described there. The fal (wall) as house wall is u- valagam, but is valayam as place, round, circle, vicinity; and its root is val-, valei-, meaning to surround or fence in).  Therefore it is obvious that it is a PIE root like the English wall, the Sanskrit देह (deha), देही (dehī, “surrounding wall”), or the Latin: vallum.

Identification with the meaning of the word ”kerek” (round) is of special interest! The capital city of Kimak Khaganate (Қыймақ қағандығы)^[2] in the 8^th to 11^th centuries, around one of Hungarians' motherland, was called Кереку (today Pavlodar). It means yurt ^[3], round tent or rács-fal (bentwood wall constituting the wall of the yurt). But such words as “horda” (herd) and “aul” (mountain falu  or village) also stem from it. (”Юрт” - поселение, стан, казахское ”журт”. Также Юрта это центр, от которого происходят слова Орта , Ортак, Орда. Слово юрт используется на кавказе со смыслом также как и ”аул” например города Хасавюрт, Чириюрт, Дубаюрт.) The aforesaid suggests that our word ”falu” (village) is an ancient heritage from the proto-Hungarian basic language.

Archaeologist István Ecsédy also wrote about the linkage between the Yamnaya culture (the Pit Grave kurgan culture located in the region between the Bug, Dniester and Ural rivers) and the culture in the Carpathian basin. The four-wheel cart on a clay vessel from Budakalász is world-famous. The earliest remains of a wheeled vehicle discovered in Eastern Europe was found in the ”Storozhova mohyla” kurgan (Dnipropetrovsk, Ukraine, excavated by Trenozhkin A.I.) Outside settlement Bojt in Hajdú-Bihar county in 2014, the skeleton of a representative of the Yamnaya culture was discovered in the central grave below the first kurgan identified with geophysical method in the Carpathian basin. The typical burial rituals carry the characteristics of the Yamnaya culture in the 3^rd millennium B.C. According to the general expert view today the infiltration of Yamnaya culture into the Carpathian basin brought along, inter alia, the use of domesticated horses and carts as well as the tradition of bronze casting which spread on widely to, and became adopted in, the entire Western Europe. For instance, the word “szekér” (meaning cart) cannot be found in any other language in Europe. The word (sekēru), is alleged to be of Akkadian, Assyrian origin, and it can also be found in Sanskrit (szakar) where it is regarded as a foreign word that may have been borrowed from Central Asia. Therefore, I presume that, instead of infiltration, an expansion may have taken place in the Carpathian basin as described above since ten thousands of kurgans can be found in the Hungarian Great Plain. Their establishment can be linked to different epochs. The earliest findings suggest that some of the tells (“residential kurgans or hills”) were inhabited in the Neolithic period. Neolithic communities settled down permanently to live a farming lifestyle and stayed at a given location for centuries, erecting residential kurgans (tells). (Tünde Horváth: 5500 éves település a Balaton partján (A 5500 year old settlement at Lake Balaton)). Later on, the nomadic horse peoples who settled down here (Scythians, Sarmatians) kept on using them. Therefore, their role changed over time; instead of serving as residential or burial places, they were used as sentry posts or boundary markers. (Wikipedia). The 8000 year old findings of the Kőrös culture also verify the presence of farming and livestock breeding lifestyle in the southern part of the Carpathian basin. By now, the opinion is overthrown that every innovation stems from Mesopotamia; much earlier remains of carts and wheels were found in the Carpathian basin”, said to the mta.hu Mária Bondár, a researcher of the Institute of Archaeology, Research Centre for the Humanities, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, who summarised the findings of the scientific exploration of a late Copper Age cemetery at Pilismarót - Basaharc, in a separate volume published in 2015. In consideration of all the aforesaid, I introduced the concept ”Hungaro-Ugric (or Magyar-Ugric) basic language”, which was receptive to the effects from southern languages and ready to retain and forward certain words from them. As the Eurasian steppe was inhabited by peoples speaking Iranian language for thousands of years, most of our early language history was affected by those contacts. (See, for example, the Sarmatian findings from the 5^th century B.C. at Filippovka where the River Ilek flows into the River Ural. Our ancient etymon words typical of the epoch are related to the Sun, light and fire, and have ”ar” roots. (Nyár, ér, jár, ár, ara, arany, sár, sarj, sark (meaning summer, vein or streamlet, walk, flood, bride, gold, mud, offshoot, heel). The resemblances between the Finnish Permic basic language and the Hungaro-Ugric are very likely to be subsequent adoptions from Hungaro-Ugric language. The Sarmatian influence was palpable until Árpád's conquest because the major barbarian population in the Carpathian basin even in the time of Roman emperors was an Iranian people: the Sarmatians.

About the proto-Hungarian language 2000 BC -- 500 AC

Classic chronicles mention the Eurasian koine full of Scythian Aryan linguistic features only as the language of Scythians, of the Barbarians. Builders of burial mounds could understand that language everywhere within the area encircled by the South Urals, Altai, the Taklamakan desert, Caucasus, the Carpathian Mountains, the inner stream of Volga and the River Belaya. The local findings from the Bronze Age refer to a common cradle of peoples known as Turanians, Scythians and Aryans. NOTE: The historical and geographical name Turan refers to the territory east of the Caspian Sea. During archaeological excavations it was discovered that a highly developed Mesopotamian culture of Sumerian original evolved in this area in ancient times.

After the collapse of the Mesopotamian Mitani in the 13^th century B.C., the Hurrian people (also called Hari, Khurrites, Hourri, Churri, Hurri or Hurriter) migrated to the area of what is Khwarezm today. The word ”hurr” or ”horr” means Sun in ancient Persian language. Thus, the name of the Hurrian tribe and Khwarezm mean people of the Sun and land or country of the Sun, respectively. (Dr. András Zakar: (p. 182 in: The Sumerian Religion and the Bible). But some researchers also presume that Sumerians used to live in Central Asia before the town of Eridu was established.

The relation between the inhabitants in the Carpathian basin and those of Mesopotamia is also attested by the objects in the kurgan deriving from the last third of the 7^th century B.C., discovered at Regöly and evaluated in 2015. Géza Szabó, an archaeologist in Szekszárd is of the view that the Regöly findings can be dated from the 7^th century B.C., and they have much in common with the Etruscan and Hallstatt cultures in Europe, the nomadic Cimmerian culture in Central Asia, as well as the Central-Eastern Urartian, Median and Phrygian cultures. But Herodotus, the Greek historian also mentioned a people coming from Persia that used to live over the River Istros (Danube) and to wear Median clothes. In Hungarian tales and legends and in our ancient chronicles, that epoch was hallmarked by such personal names as Nimrod, Ené, Hunor, Magor, Belár, Dul, by such settlements as Havilah, Scythia as well as by the migration of the inhabitants of Troy and Sicambria (See the ancient Hungarian saga Tarih-i Üngürüsz). ”After the confusion of languages has begun, Ménróth, the giant left for the land of Eviláth which was then called the province of Persia, and there he with his wife Eneth gave life to two sons, namely Hunor and Mogor, whom the Huns or Magyars sprang from. But since Ménróth, the giant had other wives than Eneth, as is well known, with whom he procreated, besides Hunor and Mogor, further sons and daughters; and those sons and their descendants live in the province of Persia, and bear a resemblance with the Huns in stature and in colour; they only differ slightly in their speech like Saxons and Thuringians.” (Gesta Hungarorum by Simon of Kéza).

It is the Celts that carried the basics of that proto-Hungarian ancient language westward of the Carpathian basin. Several authors wrote about the numerous common features between the Celts' Druidic religion and the Hungarian mythology. The Celtic music is pentatonic even today and very similar to Hungarians'. I only mention that gods Bél/Bál, Macha/Emse, Anu, Danu, the descent from Magóg,^[4] the deer showing the homeland, the existence of brother tribes (here: Fir Bolg -- Hunor-branch, Tuatha Dé Dannan -- Magor-branch) all refer to the conclusion that at some time our ancestors must have been in close relationship with each other. This is even suggested by genetic studies. The parents' names also rhyme with those of ancient Hungarian parents: Nemed's wife was Macha, or Em(e)se, while their Hungarian counterparts were Nimród and Ené (Ünő, meaning doe), and then Álmos's mother: Emese. Nemed leads his people (the deer tribe) from the Caspian Sea through Maeotis to settle down in Ireland, in Wales (it was a Celtic territory at one time. Its name in Spanish is Pais de Gales, i.e. the Land of Gauls. Their national language is Welsh, a Celtic language), and they, for instance, have a settlement called Magor^[5]. The Hungarian for the Gallic (Celtic) Govha is kova, kovács. (flint, blacksmith). Those names could found their way to the British Isles, due to the Sarmatians (ca. 1,800 years ago). The Scottish are also Celts. The Irish Celts were given the name scott by the Romans in the 1^st century B.C. Some of them moved to the territory of what is Scotland today. The difference between the ancient Irish and Scottish Celtic languages was insignificant. Their separation took place in the 5^th and 6^th centuries A.D.

According to French traditions, the Franks' ancestors originated from Troy, and departed westward from Sicambria near the Danube to reach the Seine where they established Paris to commemorate Paris, the Trojan prince. "Indeed, at the time when Aeneas arrived in Italy after the demolition of Troy, the other two Trojan princes, Priam the younger, the great Priam's grandson from Antenor's sister, his own kin on the father's side, made his way with 13,000 people through Mare Illiricum to the old Hungary. It lies around be border between Asia and Europe, where they built a large city, Sicambria. They are therefore also named after that place as Sicambrians.” (Liber Universalis by Gottfried of Viterbo, 1185.).

Hugh Hencken, and American archaeologist holds the view that the ancestors of Etruscans, the Villanovans spring from the area of the Carpathian basin. Based on his research work, it can be regarded as verified that in the late Bronze Age the groups originating from the ”Carpathian basin, the Danube” made their way to the eastern and central territories of the Mediterranean. According to encyclopaedias, Etruscans appeared on the shores of the Tyrrhenian Sea in the 10^th or 11^th century B.C.

The foundations of Eurasia's current ethnical and linguistic arrangement were laid by the European Huns. Following the demise of the Hun Empire, the tribes speaking proto-Hungarian basic language withdrew Eastward. The Iazyges (jász people) formerly living here probably left with them, and the Jászes' descendants only returned later, with the Avars and Árpád's conquerors. Scythian - Sarmatian -Hun-based Turkic, Bulgarian, Khazar, Hungarian, etc. empires, khaganates came to being from the empire of Attila's son, Ernák. That assumption is based, among other things, on Volga Bulgaria, on the Great Hungary and on the Uelgi discoveries over the South Urals. According to L. N. Gumilyev, a Russian historian, the traditions of Huns in the 3^rd to 5^th centuries were carried on by the Turks and Avars in the 6^th and 7^th centuries. (L. N. Gumilyev: “The ancient Turkic people” Moscow, 1967.). “Scythians and Huns also left numerous marks in the vocabularies and grammatical elements in the languages classified as Uralic languages, and that is where most of the correspondence with Hungarian, Turkish and Slavic languages derive from”. (Katalin Czeglédi: A magyar-bolgár nyelvviszony (The Hungarian - Bulgarian linguistic relations). Heraldika Kiadó. p. 92) 

It is clear from the statements by medieval chroniclers that Khazars' main language is not either Iranian or Turkish! Those two languages were well-known to every chronicles of the time, errors can be excluded! The Khazars' language is not known. Istakhri (? 850-934, Persian geographer), their language is the closest to the Volga Bulgarian. The prevailing and official view holds it Turkic but not Turkish. To demonstrate it, let me cite the English version of the Wikipedia „The term Turkic represents a broad ethno-linguistic group of people including existing societies such as the Turkish, Azerbaijani, Chuvashes, Kazakhs, Tatars, Kyrgyzs, Turkmen, Uyghur, Uzbeks, Bashkirs, Qashqai, Gagauzs, Yakuts, Crimean Karaites, Krymchaks, Karakalpaks, Karachays, Nogais and as well as past civilizations such as the Kumans, Kipchaks, Avars, Bulgars, Turgeshes, Seljuks, Khazars, Ottoman Turks, Mamluks, Timurids, and possibly the Xiongnu and Huns.” The similarities between today's Hungarian and the Turkish language stem from that period. Remains of Easter European runic scripts derive almost without exception from the areas of Khazar and Avaric khaganates. The ancient language of Kazan Tatars, Chuvashes and Bashkirs may have been close to the proto-Hungarian language as they shifted to the use of Kipchak Turkish in the early 13th century only. Our ancient etymon words typical of the era include the root ”bal/bel” which is synonymous with ”ar” but more of the meaning ”lord” or ”eminence” prevails in them. The word ”ar” is taken over by satem languages in the form of ász, jász, szár, cár (meaning ace, jász, stem, tsar).

The Creation of the ancient-Hungarian Language (500-895)

Hungarian and foreign chronicles, archaeological findings, toponyms and linguistic references all prove that the ancestors of Hungarians in the 6^th to 9^th centuries lived near the Dnieper - Ural - Volga - Kama rivers, north of Caucasus. The designation of exact geographical areas pertaining to different years is still a topic of discussion for scientists. But from the perspective of the ancient koine, the boundaries of those areas do not play a decisive role. The people of the period in that area were typically multilingual. Unilingualism could evolve only in isolated areas (inside several hundred year old empires, islands, mountainous areas, swamps, marshy forests, etc.). But that was not typical in the Eurasian steppe populated with tribal alliances! According to the steppe hypothesis, the protolanguage came to being on the ponto-Caspian steppe, a huge plain stretching from the northern shore of the Black Sea over the Caspian Sea, from where it started proliferating between 4500 and 3500 B.C. Unsure about the location of the source, I think a steppe koine still existed in the 4^th to 7^th centuries where the proto-Hungarian language prevailed. (Its only and best evidence is the existence of today's Hungarian language!). As a characteristic of the era, a mixture of Persian (Jász, Alanic), Armenian and Turkic languages dominate, synonymous words with ar and bel roots are used alternately. (See the evolution of personal names Béla and Árpád!). Ancient Hungarian language evolved in response to contacts with different (mainly Turkish) languages. At the end of the era, the Alanic neighbours also shaped the vocabulary of our language. The effect kept on remaining subsequently. See the closeness of Jász people's language in Hungary to the Ossetes' Digorsky dialect. Speaking about the relation between Bulgarian and Hungarian peoples, Péter Juhász affirmed in in eighties that out of the past three thousand years of their history, Hungarians (i.e. predecessor peoples of Hungarians) spent at least two and a half thousand years in the vicinity of, or together with, Bulgarians (and proto-Bulgarians). Naturally, Bulgarians could not yet be aware of the Slavic language in the first half of that time interval  Their language could probably be a Turkish version of the proto-Hungarian language. As a consequence of the Turkish migration in the 6^th to 11^th centuries, Turkish languages proliferated in Central Asia from Siberia (Yakutia) to the Mediterranean See (Seljuk Empire); and in the course of the migration Turkish words were borrowed, inter alia, into Hungarian, Persian, Urdu, Russian, Chinese and (to a lesser extent) Arabic languages. (Findley, Carter V.. The Turks in World History. Oxford University Press. 2004.).

In my scheme, Western ancient Turkish language means Turkic Orkhon, a language that the subjects of the Turkic Khaganate may have spoken. ”We know about legations from Menander's description who remarks that at that time the Ugurs (probably Hungarians) lived north of the River Volga and, together with the surrendering Alans, accepted the Turkic primacy, and thus Ugurs could keep their local power. The rank yagbu (viceroy) was retained in Prince Géza's name, while its jebu/ jevu variant evolved among Western Turkic people, and Géza's name originally sounded je-oocha/ je-vicha in Hungarian.” (Wikipedia: Turkic Empire).

The Carpathian Basic was ruled by the Avars in the 6^th to 8^th centuries. The Avars' language (I think) could be the ancient Hungarian influenced by the Western ancient Turkish language. Late Avars, Székelys and Árpád's conquerors' of the Carpathian basin could very probably understand each other without an interpreter. That is how the Celtic - Jász - Hun - Avar - Khazar - Székely - Palóc linguistic enigma is resolved, and the Old Hungarian language is born!

Old Hungarian language (895 - 1526)

Texts of Arabic, Latin, Greek, Frank, German and Old Slavonic chronicles provide abundant data on, and references to, Hungarians and their language. Hungarian tales and legends, Székely-Hungarian runic scripts, ancient chronicles, folklore, folk music, church and secular writings, deeds of gift are inexhaustible sources for linguistic research, and therefore they do not need to be elaborated herein, skilled professionals and amateurs will make plenty of such efforts. And that is also valid for studies into, and research of, the Hungarian language. While the official church and secular language was Latin in Hungary, it luckily preserved the commonly spoken Hungarian which could appear (and survive) in an unchanged written (runic) form till today. Its best example is the text of the Vizsoly Bible which, after some practice, most Hungarians with general education can understand without difficulties.

[1] Translator's note: “Professor Krantz made some corrections in his book in the meantime, which we publish as an annex to this book with his consent, or even at his proposal. Contrary to his former view whereby Hungarian is the oldest sedentary Mesolithic language, he suggests now that Hungarian language came from West Afghanistan to the Carpathian basin 10,000 years ago, and although it is still the oldest but not a Mesolithic language.”

[2] Каганат был основан древними тюрками, которые ушли на запад после падения Восточно-Тюркского каганата.

[3] 'юрта, дом; домашний очаг'. Верификации гипотезы в определенной мере способствует значение тюркской параллели: гереге ~ кереге ~ кереку  'деревянная решетка, образующая стены юрты, шатер, юрта. /Е.В. Сундуева: Звуки и образы… Улан-Удэ. 2011. p. 157/

[4] Nemed was the son of Agnoman of Scythia, Agnoman being the son of Piamp, son of Tait, son of Sera, son of Sru, son of Esru, son of Friamaint, son of Fathochta, son of Magog.

[5] Magor. Coordinates: 51.57981, -2.83121.