Hungarians = Aryan?

[Topspeed]

Hungarians, Estonians and Finns who speak Uralic languages so obviously not Indo-European languages were still considered to be Aryans. All European ethnic groups were considered to be Aryans, that is, of ‘related blood’ to the Germans.

Blut aller Völker, die geschlossen in Europa siedeln, als artverwandt bezeichnet. Damit sind z.B. auch die Polen, Russen, Madjaren oder Portugiesen ebenso dem deutschen Blut artverwandt wie die germanischen Völker.

You keep repeating same nonsense again...the finno-ugric has nothing to do with Urals.

[gebhk]

Hi Topspeed - can you develop this?

As far as I can ascertain, there is consensus among linguists that Hungarian, Estonian and Finnish are part of the Uralic familiy of languages. Is that nonsense? And if so why?

You mention Finno-Ugric. Are you treating this name as synonymous with Uralic (a minority view, it would seem, among modern linguists) or as a subgroup which exludes the Samoyedic branch (the majority view)?

Or is it just the name Uralic itself that you object to? While the geographical origins of these languages are the subject of debate (albeit I think there is a majority view, based inter alia on genetics, that they are in the East, specifically Siberia) - whoever coined the term Uralic, clearly thought they were in the Urals region. However, even if they are ultimately proved wrong, that does not change the fact that Uralic is an accepted name of a family of languages. In just the same way Meleagris galopavo domesticus is called 'Turkey' in English and 'Indyk' in Polish even though it does not come from Turkey or India, respectively. We all understand what the names mean when we order one for Christmas (at least in the UK) and enjoy a splendid roast regardless.

All in all, I would have thought we can agree that, whether we call these languages Uralic, Finno-Ugric or something else, they are considered related and separate from Indo-European languages? More to the point, they were at the time in question and surely that is all that matters in the context of this discussion?

[Peter89]

Hi Topspeed - can you develop this?

As far as I can ascertain, there is consensus among linguists that Hungarian, Estonian and Finnish are part of the Uralic familiy of languages. Is that nonsense? And if so why?

You mention Finno-Ugric. Are you treating this name as synonymous with Uralic (a minority view, it would seem, among modern linguists) or as a subgroup which exludes the Samoyedic branch (the majority view)?

Or is it just the name Uralic itself that you object to? While the geographical origins of these languages are the subject of debate (albeit I think there is a majority view, based inter alia on genetics, that they are in the East, specifically Siberia) - whoever coined the term Uralic, clearly thought they were in the Urals region. However, even if they are eventuallyultimately proved wrong, that does not change the fact that Uralic is an accepted name of a family of languages. In just the same way Meleagris galopavo domesticus is called 'Turkey' in English and 'Indyk' in Polish even though it does not come from Turkey or India, respectively. We all understand what the names mean when we order one for Christmas (at least in the UK) and enjoy a splendid roast regardless.

All in all, I would have thought we can agree that, whether we call these languages Uralic, Finno-Ugric or something else, they are considered related and separate from Indo-European languages? More to the point, they were at the time in question and surely that is all that matters in the context of this discussion?

It is not a debate of linguistics. The debate about the languages, ie. whether they are related or not, is over. Yes, they are.

However, the genetic connection is certainly not there and cultural connection is also absent, so a lot of people refuse that the languages are related. The thing is that people from the Uralic and Finno-Ugric languages are weak in numbers, separated by vast distances and inhabit wildly different regions.

These factors contributed to the fact that most of the genetics, culture and even the contemporary language is very different from one another.

The whole problem stems from the XIX. century idea that related languages mean related blood and culture. We spent the last two centuries in Europe with standardizing languages, and build science, arts, state administration, territorial claims, etc. based on "language". Czechs and Slovaks don't want to be in the same state, Croats, Serbs and Bosnians neither, although they speak mutually interintelligible languages. It is also very much questionable with whom do the other, small Indo-European people have more in common in the field of genetics or culture. For example, Romanian is a Latin language, yet the culture or genetics of Romania is very different from that of Spain, another Latin language country.

[gebhk]

Hi Peter89

I agree with most of what you have written - my question to Topspeed was what it was that he considered nonsense as this was somewhat unclear from his post.

The only thing I would disagree with is that there is certainty about the lack of genetic connection. Saag et al certainly did find commonalities between the inhabitants of the Finnic speaking regions and those further east. Indeed they were able to hypothesize that the Uralic-speaking migrants from the East arrved there some 2500 years ago on this basis. It seems not unlikely that similarly, genetic commonalities exist between the Ugric branch of the family and the Eastern Uralic branches.

Otherwise your point is well taken. My pond and dye analogy applies to language only much more so bacause languages combine, separate and evolve at a much faster rate than genetics. Inddeed, for that matter, while genetics are passed on in only, ahem, one way, languages are passed on in any number of ways. Furhermore (unless you have, say, a bone marrow transplant) you are limited to one genetical makeup, whereas it is not uncommon for more than one language to be used by a given individual or population. You are quite right that much of the pointless debate on this subject arises from the illogical and incorrect belief which evolved in the 19th century, that language, culture and 'blood' (aka genetics) were inseparably united. This has proven not to be the case but there are still many believers and in the period we are interested in, it was still canon among scholars.

[Peter89]

Hi Peter89

I agree with most of what you have written - my question to Topspeed was what it was that he considered nonsense as this was somewhat unclear from his post.

The only thing I would disagree with is that there is certainty about the lack of genetic connection. Saag et al certainly did find commonalities between the inhabitants of the Finnic speaking regions and those further east. Indeed they were able to hypothesize that the Uralic-speaking migrants from the East arrved there some 2500 years ago on this basis. It seems not unlikely that similarly, genetic commonalities exist between the Ugric branch of the family and the Eastern Uralic branches.

Otherwise your point is well taken. My pond and dye analogy applies to language only much more so bacause languages combine, separate and evolve at a much faster rate than genetics. Inddeed, for that matter, while genetics are passed on in only, ahem, one way, languages are passed on in any number of ways. Furhermore (unless you have, say, a bone marrow transplant) you are limited to one genetical makeup, whereas it is not uncommon for more than one language to be used by a given individual or population. You are quite right that much of the pointless debate on this subject arises from the illogical and incorrect belief which evolved in the 19th century, that language, culture and 'blood' (aka genetics) were inseparably united. This has proven not to be the case but there are still many believers and in the period we are interested in, it was still canon among scholars.

Yes indeed, there are sporadic genetic evidence that Finns, Estonians, Hungarians, etc. are very, very distantly related to some indigenous people living in, and most east of, the Urals. However, this genetic link is very, very weak (like N-B540). Of course, the population of Hungary was subjected to much more migration, extinction, etc. than that of Estonia, and even more than Northern Finnland; this is the reason why the population of Hungary contains only traces of the genetic material that arrived to the Carpathian Basin some 1100 years ago.

In truth, an average Hungarian is much more related genetically to an average Slovak or an average Romanian from Transsylvania or a Serb from Vojvodina, than to the people who migrated to Hungary 1100 years ago.

There is also the question what we really consider a migration, because if a culture occupies a territory, it does not necessarily transforms the local genetic pool, or even a language; just think about how people speak English in an international environment where everyone has a different mother tongue. Mixed language couples tend to adopt words from both languages, even if they speak a third lingua franca. This happened for centuries, and changed the languages in a substantial way. There is also the Roman Empire's way: to slowly transform people culturally, but keep their genetic pool and their everyday language more-or-less intact. Regarding the Finnish-Hungarian language relations, there are a few similar words, and that's it:

elää - élni (live)
mennä - menni (go)
tehdä - tenni (do)
kala - hal (fish)
vesi - víz (water)
runko - rönk (trunk)
yö - éj (night)
mitä? - mit? (what?)

But ike I said, the language we speak now is quite different than that our imagined ancestors spoke 1000 years ago; in every Hungarian school, kids get acquinted with the first scripts written in old-Hungarian: they are barely recognizeable and totally non-understandable. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Funeral_Sermon_and_Prayer
1000 years ago, not to mention 2-3000 years ago people spoke a different language, probably the two had more similarities. And most of the ancestors of Hungarians did not come from the (east of the) Urals.

A few hundred years ago half of the people later to be called French, Germans and Italians did not understand each other properly, or at all; "language", a standardized system taught in schools, using a uniform alphabet, following a certain grammar is the invention of the age of nationalism. Before that, Latin was the lingua franca as well as the language of the official documents. In fact a large number of related languages were destroyed by this process, but for example the language differences in Germany, Austria and Switzerland might give us a hunch what happened.

This "genetic relationship" is only interesting because some people have a hard time to accept that our neighbours are the ones with whom we share the most ties. The Finno-Ugric people feel that they are "alone" in the ocean of Indo-European people, who always tend to claim kinship (and how well that goes can be seen even nowadays) since nationalism began.

[gebhk]

Indeed, I don't think it is in any way possible to make genralisations because all three elements - genetics, culture and language react to change in different ways and the changes, such as migrations, are also variable. There are, for example, different types of migration - for example there are migrations which only involve a migration of the ruling class moving in to govern the population of another country. If we stick with that example, the impact of even that small subsection of migrations can be very varied. Often such migrations bring with it a new language. Sometimes it sticks and becomes dominant (Romania), sometimes it homogenises with the native language(s) (Britain), sometimes it virtually disappears altogether leaving a few words and name places perhaps (Normans in the Mediterranean). At the same time the other factors, genetics and culture may or may not leave an imprint and whether the ruling aliens stay or subsequently leave is no great guide to the future either. Yes, you are most likely to be genetically most similar to your nearest neighbours but not necessarily so. There are certainly examples, including at least one in Wales, where small immigrant communities have become submerged in the surrounding culture and language but, much to everyone's surprise, are found to be very geentically different to their neighbours and more genetically akin to their original land. There are simply no universal rules because there are just too many moving parts. There is instead, for all intents and purposes, infinite variety in infinite combinations and anyone reaching conclusions about relatedness based on geography, culture and language is simply deluding themselves.

[George L Gregory]

Hungarians, Estonians and Finns who speak Uralic languages so obviously not Indo-European languages were still considered to be Aryans. All European ethnic groups were considered to be Aryans, that is, of ‘related blood’ to the Germans.

Blut aller Völker, die geschlossen in Europa siedeln, als artverwandt bezeichnet. Damit sind z.B. auch die Polen, Russen, Madjaren oder Portugiesen ebenso dem deutschen Blut artverwandt wie die germanischen Völker.

You keep repeating same nonsense again...the finno-ugric has nothing to do with Urals.

You tried your luck last time and failed.

viewtopic.php?f=44&t=256258&hilit=Finns ... 5#p2368944

I’m not sure if it’s a language barrier, but you made spurious claims and your own sources contradicted your claims too. So, what is it exactly?

As the above thread shows, you think that your own thoughts triumph objective facts. I have news for you, they do not. And let’s not forget that you exposed yourself as a troll anyway when you claimed that, “You are an anime character claiming to live in Britain.”

viewtopic.php?f=44&t=256258&hilit=Finns ... 0#p2369343

If all you’re going to do on this thread is do the same as you did on the other thread, that is, ignorance or deny facts, personally attack people and make spurious claims then just go away and don’t waste anyone’s time.

[George L Gregory]

There are no aryans it was brainfart from Himmler.

The idea of an Aryan race wasn’t invented by Heinrich Himmler.

Racial theorists in the Third Reich rejected the idea of using “Aryan” in a racial sense in 1935 when the Nuremberg Laws were announced so the Nazis used the term “German or related blood” instead and that included all the ethnic groups in Europe.

[George L Gregory]

Hungarians, Estonians and Finns who speak Uralic languages so obviously not Indo-European languages were still considered to be Aryans. All European ethnic groups were considered to be Aryans, that is, of ‘related blood’ to the Germans.

Blut aller Völker, die geschlossen in Europa siedeln, als artverwandt bezeichnet. Damit sind z.B. auch die Polen, Russen, Madjaren oder Portugiesen ebenso dem deutschen Blut artverwandt wie die germanischen Völker.

You keep repeating same nonsense again...the finno-ugric has nothing to do with Urals.

Your denial of facts is honestly astonishing. So, according to you, what grouping of languages does the Finnish language belong to exactly?

You seem to keep denying that Estonian, Finnish and Hungarian belong to the Finno-Uralic languages, why?

[Topspeed]

Finno-Ugric...are the original people of north western Russia...and Finland and Estonia.

[gebhk]

Finno-Ugric...are the original people of north western Russia...and Finland and Estonia.

Can you summarise the evidence for this revolutionary new theory? AFAIK the evidence considered to date - genetic, linguistic and archaelogical has suggested otherwise. For example, Saag et al in 2019, triangulating such evidence, hypothesized that the Uralic-speaking people arrived in Estonia only some 2500 years ago. Since Finland, has been inhabited by modern humans, AFAIK, at least for around 9K years and Estonia for around 9.5K years (and perhaps by Neanderthals much earlier than that - it all depends on how you arbitrarily define 'people'), they could not have been the original inhabitants.

Needless to say, as Peter89 has previously pointed out, that does not mean that the modern Finns or Estonians are the same as or the descendants of these immigrants from (most likely) Siberia only. The genetics suggest that they made a relatively small genetic contribution despite, clearly, a disproportionately large linguistic contribution. In other words, the numbers of Uralic-speaking immigrants were probably not large but, for whatever reasons, their language was largely adopted by the local majority. Subsequently, of course, the language, genetical makeup and cultures of these lands developed, each in their own ways, with subsequent migrations adopting Fennic languages in many cases.

A problem only arises when the disproven hypoothesis is pushed, usually for political reasons, that language parallels genetics. This is evident when terms such as 'Finno-Ugric peoples' are used. There is no such thing, The Finns and Hungarians are not closely related even though their languages have a common ancestor. There is only the Finno-Ugric language family or sub-family (depending on your view of linguistic evolution) and there are Finno-Ugric speakers.

[gebhk]

There are no aryans it was brainfart from Himmler.

Hardly. The noun and adjective have been used to describe and self-describe ethnic/racial, linguistic, cultural and socio-economic groups of people for thousands of years and continue be used thus to this day. If anyone, it was the British-born Houston Stewart Chamberlain, who first propagated the term Aryan as a synonym of the 'white' (and by implication 'superior') race from the late 1800s. Ironically, by the time of the Nazi era, that notion was being consigned to history by anthropologists and even, as George points out, the Nazi race experts who informed the thinking of Himmler.

[George L Gregory]

There are no aryans it was brainfart from Himmler.

Hardly. The noun and adjective have been used to describe and self-describe ethnic/racial, linguistic, cultural and socio-economic groups of people for thousands of years and continue be used thus to this day. If anyone, it was the British-born Houston Stewart Chamberlain, who first propagated the term Aryan as a synonym of the 'white' (and by implication 'superior') race from the late 1800s. Ironically, by the time of the Nazi era, that notion was being consigned to history by anthropologists and even, as George points out, the Nazi race experts who informed the thinking of Himmler.

Even Chamberlain himself wrote in The Foundations of the Nineteenth Century:

Though it were proved that there was never an Aryan race in the past, yet we desire that in the future there may be one.

[Topspeed]

Hi Peter89

I agree with most of what you have written - my question to Topspeed was what it was that he considered nonsense as this was somewhat unclear from his post.

The only thing I would disagree with is that there is certainty about the lack of genetic connection. Saag et al certainly did find commonalities between the inhabitants of the Finnic speaking regions and those further east. Indeed they were able to hypothesize that the Uralic-speaking migrants from the East arrved there some 2500 years ago on this basis. It seems not unlikely that similarly, genetic commonalities exist between the Ugric branch of the family and the Eastern Uralic branches.

Otherwise your point is well taken. My pond and dye analogy applies to language only much more so bacause languages combine, separate and evolve at a much faster rate than genetics. Inddeed, for that matter, while genetics are passed on in only, ahem, one way, languages are passed on in any number of ways. Furhermore (unless you have, say, a bone marrow transplant) you are limited to one genetical makeup, whereas it is not uncommon for more than one language to be used by a given individual or population. You are quite right that much of the pointless debate on this subject arises from the illogical and incorrect belief which evolved in the 19th century, that language, culture and 'blood' (aka genetics) were inseparably united. This has proven not to be the case but there are still many believers and in the period we are interested in, it was still canon among scholars.

Yes indeed, there are sporadic genetic evidence that Finns, Estonians, Hungarians, etc. are very, very distantly related to some indigenous people living in, and most east of, the Urals. However, this genetic link is very, very weak (like N-B540). Of course, the population of Hungary was subjected to much more migration, extinction, etc. than that of Estonia, and even more than Northern Finnland; this is the reason why the population of Hungary contains only traces of the genetic material that arrived to the Carpathian Basin some 1100 years ago.

In truth, an average Hungarian is much more related genetically to an average Slovak or an average Romanian from Transsylvania or a Serb from Vojvodina, than to the people who migrated to Hungary 1100 years ago.

There is also the question what we really consider a migration, because if a culture occupies a territory, it does not necessarily transforms the local genetic pool, or even a language; just think about how people speak English in an international environment where everyone has a different mother tongue. Mixed language couples tend to adopt words from both languages, even if they speak a third lingua franca. This happened for centuries, and changed the languages in a substantial way. There is also the Roman Empire's way: to slowly transform people culturally, but keep their genetic pool and their everyday language more-or-less intact. Regarding the Finnish-Hungarian language relations, there are a few similar words, and that's it:

elää - élni (live)
mennä - menni (go)
tehdä - tenni (do)
kala - hal (fish)
vesi - víz (water)
runko - rönk (trunk)
yö - éj (night)
mitä? - mit? (what?)

But ike I said, the language we speak now is quite different than that our imagined ancestors spoke 1000 years ago; in every Hungarian school, kids get acquinted with the first scripts written in old-Hungarian: they are barely recognizeable and totally non-understandable. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Funeral_Sermon_and_Prayer
1000 years ago, not to mention 2-3000 years ago people spoke a different language, probably the two had more similarities. And most of the ancestors of Hungarians did not come from the (east of the) Urals.

A few hundred years ago half of the people later to be called French, Germans and Italians did not understand each other properly, or at all; "language", a standardized system taught in schools, using a uniform alphabet, following a certain grammar is the invention of the age of nationalism. Before that, Latin was the lingua franca as well as the language of the official documents. In fact a large number of related languages were destroyed by this process, but for example the language differences in Germany, Austria and Switzerland might give us a hunch what happened.

This "genetic relationship" is only interesting because some people have a hard time to accept that our neighbours are the ones with whom we share the most ties. The Finno-Ugric people feel that they are "alone" in the ocean of Indo-European people, who always tend to claim kinship (and how well that goes can be seen even nowadays) since nationalism began.

Those are clearly close.

[Peter89]

Those are clearly close.

Yes, but they don't explain much on their own. Sadly, my knowledge in linguistics is limited.