Post by Ardavarz on Feb 24, 2011 5:30:11 GMT 3
Recently while searching the net I came across a stunning information. I found several posts in different forums dealing with the language of the Huns based on some documents allegedly discovered in Armenian monasteries. I was really stunned. How was possible that such a discovery has remained generally unknown? Hunnic language was a mystery for so long, but indeed there is stories in the old chronicles telling about Armenian missionaries gone amongst the Huns. For instance Zacharias Rhetor writes about the mission of Armenian bishop Kardost and his seven disciples who were amongst the Huns north of Caucasus in 515- 529 C.E. It is told that they have translated the Bible in Hunnic. So it sounds plausible that some information about Hunnic language (if not that very text or at least part of it) could survive amongst the unstudied books in Armenian monastery libraries. I have always hoped that these data will be found some day, that's why I decided to investigate this case. Unfortunately (for me) most of the information published online was in Hungarian and I had a hard time deciphering it by means of Google-translator and other online dictionaries. And here is what I found out so far:
The information is somewhat inconsistent. It appears some manuscripts have been found in the monastery of Surb Khach (Saint Cross) in Esfahan (Iran). But it is also told that copies exist in Matenadaran (Armenia). Some studies of these texts have been published in Armenian and allegedly could be found in National Library in Yerevan. Some hint that there is a Turkish translation too. I am unable to confirm or deny any of these statements.
I found a good article in English written by an Hungarian scientist - Béla Lukács - discussing this topic:
www.rmki.kfki.hu/~lukacs/DETREHUN.htm
The text by Csaba Detre to which the author of the above article refers is the following:
www.kincseslada.hu/magyarsag/content.php?article.271
I generally agree with the conclusions of the author B. Lukács. However, this article was written some time ago and it appears that some new data have been published, but again only in Hungarian. They concern the works of the late scholar priest Vahan Anhaghth Astvatzaturian. Here in his obituary notice can be found more information:
filozofia.wplanet.hu/tag_va.html
From the links in the bottom of this latter page can be downloaded textbooks and dictionaries of what he calls "Scythian B" or Hun language. I don't know where they are come from - maybe these are translations (French to Hungarian?) from Astvatzaturian's book "The Scythoid Languages" ("Les langues scythoides", Zarytos-Tyros, 1985) mentioned in his obituary notice. In contrast to Cs. Detre who uses Hungarian transcription for the Hunnic words and texts, Astvatzaturian has developed a latinized transliteration based on the original Old Armenian (Grabar) letters which doesn't employs any diacritics and avoids the ambiguity discussed in the article of B. Lukács. It is not clear still what are these "textbooks". Are they composed in Middle Ages (for training the Armenian missionaries?) or today based on linguistic materials from those old manuscripts?
And then I found a third source - another set of four "lessons" (again in Hungarian transcription) published by another author - Pető Imre:
osmagyar.kisbiro.hu/modules.php?name=topics&file=olvas&cikk=szkita-486c7ac24c01f
It seems that all these texts are concerned with several closely related languages (I've noticed some differences in rendering of the words and the verbal conjugation) - V. A. Astvatzaturian calls them "Scythoid" although I don't think they have any direct connection with the language of the classic Scythians from Herodotus's time. This fits more the medieval loose use of the term "Scythian". But is this the long wanted Hunnic language? Of course, it would be difficult to say without a detailed study of the original Armenian texts which (as it seems) are still unpublished. Maybe this was the language of Sabirs as B. Lukács suggests (even though I've had the impression that Sabirs have spoken some Turkic language, but still there were also other Hun tribes around Caucasus). Or maybe we have some kind of common language used amongst different peoples in the Hun alliance loosely based on the original Hunnic? I tend to agree for the present with this latter conjecture.
Here are some observations I made while trying to study these "textbooks":
This "Hunnic" is an agglutinative language, but it doesn't seem to apply any vocal or consonantal harmony (in this respect it resembles Ossetian). Most of its vocabulary has cognates in Magyar (Hungarian), but it seems to contain a large amount of loanwords from many different languages.
(An almost comprehensive dictionary with Hungarian transcription is given here:
osmagyar.kisbiro.hu/modules.php?name=topics&file=olvas&cikk=szkita-486c8a6329514). I've detected words which appear to be not only Turkic, but also Iranian, Germanic, Slavic, Armenian, and even Indian, Chinese and Japanese. Here are several examples:
Turkic: atha - "father" (< ata); jeti - "seven"; aji, haji - "moon" (< aj); qada - "duck" (< qaz); kapu - "gate" (< Old Turk. qapuγ).
Mongolian: chun - "warrior, man" (~ Mong. hün - "human"?).
Persian: azad - "free" (< āzād); mard - "man"; saath - "hundred" (< sad); hezer - "thousand" (< hezār).
German: landa - "land" (= Goth. landa); thal - "valey"; Ballakhalu - "abode of gods" (~ Valhalla?; however in Norse mythology it's the castle of the fallen heroes which in Hunnic is called "hideovara", being different from Ballakhalu).
Slavic: ladani - "palm" (= Rus. ladon'); serti - "heart" (~ Rus. serdtse); siri, shiri - "steppe, pasture" (~ Rus. shir' - "expanse").
Indian: shinga - "lion" (< Skt. siṃha); shend - "peace" (< Skt. śānti).
Chinese: hwan - "ten thousand" (< wan); ten - "sky" (< t'ien) (in the compound tenmard - "celestial man, god").
Japanese: nishe - "west" (~ nishi); hideo - "hero" (~ hidoi - "severe, awful").
Armenian: azdigh - "star" (~ astġ ?; cf. astłik - "little star, Venus"); lezu - "language" (= lezou).
Scythian: kutha - "dog" (< *kuti); bashte - "broad" (~ Oss. bästä - "land"); kuna - "book" (< *kunig).
Greek: theos - "the Christian god".
Latin: hovi - "sheep" (~ ovis).
Avestan: vara - "castle" (= vara - "enclosure").
Especially interesting are numerals. They form two different sets - one based on decimal and another on vigesimal (base-20) number system. Similar is the situation in Ossetian and Welsh languages.
In the textbooks are given fragments from more larger texts - epics dealing with historical and mythological subjects. Still, many things are unclear. For instance some of the texts in the "textbook" sound too modern - for instance from the lesson about astronomy (№ 4 in Astvatzaturian 's textbook) it becomes clear that Earth is a planet and the Milky Way - a galaxy (azdighum - the word for "stellar cluster" is interpreted as "galaxy"). Are these texts really authentic or they have been designed today just to teach the language? Next Lesson 5 is about geography and it also contains several confusing passages. There is something which appears to be fragments from some obscure legend about the origin of Huns. Surprisingly it is related to a territory which seems to be Central or Western Europe (?!) - amongst the rivers mentioned are Rhine and Timish and the "oldest parts" were the "Big Peninsula", "Little Peninsula" and the "Islands". This country is called "Western Fatherland" (Nishi Athalanda) where the ancestors have lived in some big marshlands before being driven from there by a flood. Several names of "big tribes in the Fatherland" are given amongst which are clearly recognizable some Celtic tribes once lived in Britain and several Germanic from the continent. I doubt this legend refers to the time of Attila. Or maybe this is a disguised attempt to associate the origin of Huns with the myth of Atlantis (note the similarity with the word "Athalanda")? This really bewilders me and makes me unsure what to think about all these texts. Similarly in the Hun-Scythian-Hungarian dictionary by Pető Imre (see the link above; also in note 12 there) we can find the names of 25 Hun tribes - some of them can be understood etymologically through this language, but none is mentioned in any known historical source (at least as far as I know).
All this is very puzzling. Still, I don't want to dismiss the case just because it is weird and doesn't concurs with the current ideas. In fact I am afraid that it can be as well ignored and forgotten by mainstream science precisely because some people have begun to form bizarre ideas based on these data. The linguistic material is quite abundant - it seems enough to start a project for reconstructing or even to revive this forgotten language which (for me at least) is a fascinating possibility. Still it takes me too much time to study those texts without a previous knowledge of Hungarian language. So I hope someone who speak Magyar would shed more light on this subject.
The information is somewhat inconsistent. It appears some manuscripts have been found in the monastery of Surb Khach (Saint Cross) in Esfahan (Iran). But it is also told that copies exist in Matenadaran (Armenia). Some studies of these texts have been published in Armenian and allegedly could be found in National Library in Yerevan. Some hint that there is a Turkish translation too. I am unable to confirm or deny any of these statements.
I found a good article in English written by an Hungarian scientist - Béla Lukács - discussing this topic:
www.rmki.kfki.hu/~lukacs/DETREHUN.htm
The text by Csaba Detre to which the author of the above article refers is the following:
www.kincseslada.hu/magyarsag/content.php?article.271
I generally agree with the conclusions of the author B. Lukács. However, this article was written some time ago and it appears that some new data have been published, but again only in Hungarian. They concern the works of the late scholar priest Vahan Anhaghth Astvatzaturian. Here in his obituary notice can be found more information:
filozofia.wplanet.hu/tag_va.html
From the links in the bottom of this latter page can be downloaded textbooks and dictionaries of what he calls "Scythian B" or Hun language. I don't know where they are come from - maybe these are translations (French to Hungarian?) from Astvatzaturian's book "The Scythoid Languages" ("Les langues scythoides", Zarytos-Tyros, 1985) mentioned in his obituary notice. In contrast to Cs. Detre who uses Hungarian transcription for the Hunnic words and texts, Astvatzaturian has developed a latinized transliteration based on the original Old Armenian (Grabar) letters which doesn't employs any diacritics and avoids the ambiguity discussed in the article of B. Lukács. It is not clear still what are these "textbooks". Are they composed in Middle Ages (for training the Armenian missionaries?) or today based on linguistic materials from those old manuscripts?
And then I found a third source - another set of four "lessons" (again in Hungarian transcription) published by another author - Pető Imre:
osmagyar.kisbiro.hu/modules.php?name=topics&file=olvas&cikk=szkita-486c7ac24c01f
It seems that all these texts are concerned with several closely related languages (I've noticed some differences in rendering of the words and the verbal conjugation) - V. A. Astvatzaturian calls them "Scythoid" although I don't think they have any direct connection with the language of the classic Scythians from Herodotus's time. This fits more the medieval loose use of the term "Scythian". But is this the long wanted Hunnic language? Of course, it would be difficult to say without a detailed study of the original Armenian texts which (as it seems) are still unpublished. Maybe this was the language of Sabirs as B. Lukács suggests (even though I've had the impression that Sabirs have spoken some Turkic language, but still there were also other Hun tribes around Caucasus). Or maybe we have some kind of common language used amongst different peoples in the Hun alliance loosely based on the original Hunnic? I tend to agree for the present with this latter conjecture.
Here are some observations I made while trying to study these "textbooks":
This "Hunnic" is an agglutinative language, but it doesn't seem to apply any vocal or consonantal harmony (in this respect it resembles Ossetian). Most of its vocabulary has cognates in Magyar (Hungarian), but it seems to contain a large amount of loanwords from many different languages.
(An almost comprehensive dictionary with Hungarian transcription is given here:
osmagyar.kisbiro.hu/modules.php?name=topics&file=olvas&cikk=szkita-486c8a6329514). I've detected words which appear to be not only Turkic, but also Iranian, Germanic, Slavic, Armenian, and even Indian, Chinese and Japanese. Here are several examples:
Turkic: atha - "father" (< ata); jeti - "seven"; aji, haji - "moon" (< aj); qada - "duck" (< qaz); kapu - "gate" (< Old Turk. qapuγ).
Mongolian: chun - "warrior, man" (~ Mong. hün - "human"?).
Persian: azad - "free" (< āzād); mard - "man"; saath - "hundred" (< sad); hezer - "thousand" (< hezār).
German: landa - "land" (= Goth. landa); thal - "valey"; Ballakhalu - "abode of gods" (~ Valhalla?; however in Norse mythology it's the castle of the fallen heroes which in Hunnic is called "hideovara", being different from Ballakhalu).
Slavic: ladani - "palm" (= Rus. ladon'); serti - "heart" (~ Rus. serdtse); siri, shiri - "steppe, pasture" (~ Rus. shir' - "expanse").
Indian: shinga - "lion" (< Skt. siṃha); shend - "peace" (< Skt. śānti).
Chinese: hwan - "ten thousand" (< wan); ten - "sky" (< t'ien) (in the compound tenmard - "celestial man, god").
Japanese: nishe - "west" (~ nishi); hideo - "hero" (~ hidoi - "severe, awful").
Armenian: azdigh - "star" (~ astġ ?; cf. astłik - "little star, Venus"); lezu - "language" (= lezou).
Scythian: kutha - "dog" (< *kuti); bashte - "broad" (~ Oss. bästä - "land"); kuna - "book" (< *kunig).
Greek: theos - "the Christian god".
Latin: hovi - "sheep" (~ ovis).
Avestan: vara - "castle" (= vara - "enclosure").
Especially interesting are numerals. They form two different sets - one based on decimal and another on vigesimal (base-20) number system. Similar is the situation in Ossetian and Welsh languages.
In the textbooks are given fragments from more larger texts - epics dealing with historical and mythological subjects. Still, many things are unclear. For instance some of the texts in the "textbook" sound too modern - for instance from the lesson about astronomy (№ 4 in Astvatzaturian 's textbook) it becomes clear that Earth is a planet and the Milky Way - a galaxy (azdighum - the word for "stellar cluster" is interpreted as "galaxy"). Are these texts really authentic or they have been designed today just to teach the language? Next Lesson 5 is about geography and it also contains several confusing passages. There is something which appears to be fragments from some obscure legend about the origin of Huns. Surprisingly it is related to a territory which seems to be Central or Western Europe (?!) - amongst the rivers mentioned are Rhine and Timish and the "oldest parts" were the "Big Peninsula", "Little Peninsula" and the "Islands". This country is called "Western Fatherland" (Nishi Athalanda) where the ancestors have lived in some big marshlands before being driven from there by a flood. Several names of "big tribes in the Fatherland" are given amongst which are clearly recognizable some Celtic tribes once lived in Britain and several Germanic from the continent. I doubt this legend refers to the time of Attila. Or maybe this is a disguised attempt to associate the origin of Huns with the myth of Atlantis (note the similarity with the word "Athalanda")? This really bewilders me and makes me unsure what to think about all these texts. Similarly in the Hun-Scythian-Hungarian dictionary by Pető Imre (see the link above; also in note 12 there) we can find the names of 25 Hun tribes - some of them can be understood etymologically through this language, but none is mentioned in any known historical source (at least as far as I know).
All this is very puzzling. Still, I don't want to dismiss the case just because it is weird and doesn't concurs with the current ideas. In fact I am afraid that it can be as well ignored and forgotten by mainstream science precisely because some people have begun to form bizarre ideas based on these data. The linguistic material is quite abundant - it seems enough to start a project for reconstructing or even to revive this forgotten language which (for me at least) is a fascinating possibility. Still it takes me too much time to study those texts without a previous knowledge of Hungarian language. So I hope someone who speak Magyar would shed more light on this subject.
