Etruscan: An Archaic Form of Hungarian

" Etruscan words such as mi (I), eca/ita (this), maθ (honey), tin (day) and tur (give) have long persuaded many scholars that Etruscan is a Eurasiatic language, perhaps even an Anatolian language (Bomhard) that split from a common Indo-European stem at a very early stage. The precise nature of its affiliations nevertheless remain obscure. In what is probably the most interesting account of recent years, the Italian dialectologist, Mario Alinei, suggests in his new book that Etruscan is nothing more than an archaic form of Hungarian with extensive Türkic borrowings.

This linguistic proposition rests on two historical/archaeological propositions – an uncontroversial one that the Etruscans came from the Carpathian basin, and a highly controversial one that identifies them as a proto-Hungarian/Uralic people...What has hidden the Uralic affiliations of Etruscan is its highly variable spelling, although Alinei assures us that its latitude is no worse than in Mediaeval Florentine or Venetian texts. If the Etruscans were a warrior aristocracy that was gradually absorbed by its subjects, then it presumably recruited its scribes from its Italic-speaking subjects, who wrote in a vowel-poor alphabet of Semitic origin, thus obscuring the open syllable, agglutinative nature of a Uralic language with extensive vowel harmony...In addition, contemporary Arab sources from the 10thcentury onwards, most notably al-Garnarti, writing around 1080, speak of two groups of Hungarians, one living on the Danube and another 2000 km to the East in what is now the Bashkir republic, whose aristocracy was bilingual in Turkish and Hungarian, and which shared the gyula/kende model of kingship with the Khazars. Indeed, it is highly significant these words are of Turkic origin, with Hung. gyula reflecting Bashk. yulaj and kende Tatar [reverence, profound respect].

Archaeological evidence (e.g. from cemeteries) has confirmed the cultural continuities between the two groups. Furthermore, the Hungarian king, Géza I (1074-77) received a crown from the Byzantine emperor inscribed with the legend ‘to Geza, the faithful king of the Turks’. Indeed, the heavily Turkicized character of the Hungarians, as is apparent from their music and mythology, makes it most likely that less discerning classical sources would have labeled them with the hold-all description of Scythes.

On this point, the linguistic evidence is illuminating, in that Hungarian shares a vocabularywith Mansi and Khanty for horses and wagons that is borrowed from Turkic (e.g. Hung. ló, M. low [horse]; PUg. närk3, M. näwrä, Hung. nyerëg [saddle]); PUg. päkka, Kh. päk, Hung. fék [bridle, rein]; PUg. säk3r3, Kh. iker, Hung. szekér [vehicle], but is unique among the Uralic languages in also borrowing its agricultural vocabulary from Turkic (e.g. Hung. eke [plough], Hung. árpa [barley], Hung. búza [wheat], Hung. sajt [cheese], Hung. tinó [ox]).

This suggests that the proto-Hungarians were still united with the Mansi and Khanty at a stage when they were pre-agricultural nomadic pastoralists involved with horse breeding, but that the proto-Hungarians subsequently split away and were introduced to agriculture by another Turkic people. We may also conclude that the Hungarians were not present in Europe at the time they acquired their knowledge of agriculture, since if they had been, we would expect them to have borrowed an Indo-European agricultural vocabulary." MORE

Mavi Boncuk |

MARIO ALINEI On YouTube

Etruscan: An Archaic Form of Hungarian

series "Il Mulino/Ricerca"

pp. 496, 978-88-15-09382-0

publication year 2003

Inhis book Mario Alinei aims to prove the family relationship between Etruscan and Hungarian, on the basis of a "theory of continuity" developed during his studies on the origins of European languages. His conclusions are rooted in the extraordinary resemblance of Etruscan and ancient Magyar magistrature names and other, numerous similarities - concerning typologies, lexicon and historical grammar - between the two languages. Thanks to these analogies, the author confirms many Etruscology findings, improves the translation of previously translated texts, and translates formerly untranslatable "talking" texts or only partially translated "bilingual" texts. The final part of the volume is devoted to a review of findings of studies of Etruscan prehistory and the presentation of a new hypothesis relating to the hotly debated issue of when ancient Magyars "conquered" Hungary.

Contents: Preface - 1. Turkic and Hungarian Origins of Main Etruscan Terms Concerning Magistratures - 2. Etruscan as Archaic Hungarian: Lexicon and Toponymy - 3. Etruscan as Archaic Hungarian: Texts - 4. Etruscan as Archaic Hungarian in the Context of Etruscology and Ugrian Studies - 5. Carpatian-Danubian Origins of Etruscans According to Archaeological Research and the Theory of Continuity - 6. The Grafting of Etruscan Prehistory onto Magyar Prehistory According to the Two Theories of Continuity (Uralian and European) - Conclusions - Bibliography - Index of Etruscan Terms

Mario Alinei is emeritus professor at the University of Utrecht, where he taught from 1959 to 1987.