Hungarians

[hjernespiser]

ardavarz,

The -oi ending is considered to be the Greek plural, just like in Turkoi (the name written for the Hungarians in De Administrando). Asphali is also considered to be derived from the Greek word asphales.

Tamas,

Sabiroi is the name used by Byzantines for Sabirs in other documents. One problem to be resolved is how Sabir phonetically becomes Sabart in the languages spoken at the time. It isn't enough to make leaps of logic to match Sabir to Sabart. Another problem to resolve is how Siberia comes from Sabir. Then there's the belief that the original name is Syebir.

[Tamas]

Hi!
You know, my only problem with this type of thinking is all who use this are trying to put people into a type of basket.
No, this is wrong in my opinion.
As I see things, I think majars were a mixed ethnic group.
Since the Andronovo culture, the (non-mitocondrial) DNA started to change into turkic. This change till the wandering conquest of the xiongnu/hun horde has beet almost completely met.
It is a scientific fact.
Plus, there is a written evidence (namely the Ómagyar Mária siralom or abbreviated as OMS) which pulls turkic words and way of thinking also closer to the times of the hungarian conquest comparing how this thing stands today.
Plus, the merging with turkic population wasn't just ethnic and linguistic at a medium range. The majar tribes were in fact always in a tribal alliance with other turkic (and non-turkic) tribes, and in cohabitation.
Just as they did with the oghur-bolgars, kabars, the khazars and the bashkirs, some known examples to mention.
Okay, what this means ?
This means to me if the majar tribes didn't survive in the Carpathian-basin, the scholars would have thought the majars were just a type of turkic population, because of their names and words and such evidences....
Just they do the same with the sabirs and the huns....
This is I think a pathetic way of thinking.
Further, this is why the statement "I am more close to huns because I am of turkic origin" does not makes any sense and if pathetic also....
So do you know why Mendeleev was such an inspirating figure with his periodic table ?
Haha ! Check it yourself !
Okay, okay, may you not find anything he told that these are the things, elements we know, and he left spaces between the known ones, and told that the others we don't know yet.
I think it is very instructive.

So the hungarians told they'd been called "sabart", right ?
And he didn't know why....right ?
I think I either don't know why, but may the difference would be wovel harmony of a long lost and badly recalled memory of the hungarian delegation ?
Can be, and it's logical, I think.
Next thing is sabirs were turks, right ?
This thing is so labile as the example shown if the majars were extinct they'd considered to be turks for now (as they were really, but partly)....
Plus, how many languages existed among the conquesting hungarians, we know slavic, turkic and majar language also coexisted, and possibly one or more of these were spoken by the common people of the majars. So the question is complex, but the answers are simple.
Sabirs, if they were not completely hungarians then they had tribes of hungarian origin partly (in a tribal-alliance as the history shown example with the bashkirs), and after the avars arrival either these hungarians went on with the avars or joined the main branch is just the question of the person you'll be talking with.
So why people don't accept the evident reason majars were in fact partly or completely sabirs is because sabirs are considered as the remnants or types of huns, and you know the evidences are clearly showing huns were turkic....(but they are not showing anything ).

[H. İhsan Erkoç]

So you dare to call me pathetic? And you dare to treat me as an ignorant? Goodbye, you have been banned.

[benzin]

Why are you Magyars so obsessed with the Huns?

Its because all our codexes tell us about magyars are descendants of the huns. The other reason is the hungarian speaking Szeklers who consider themselve huns. Its a very strong heritage here, all the old kings from the Arpad house considered themselve Hun descendants.
Father of Arpad, Almos is in the Bulgarian source of their former Hun kings.

The fact that we are mentioned in old sources on several different names, and mostly those tribal names are Turkic tribes makes a few unanswered questions. In almost all sources magyars live among Turkic tribes not Ugrians.

Its a new fever in Hungary in the last 10 years to find exactly where we came from. From Japan to Sumeria we find connections, there are 1000 possible theory and all of them has proofs. Its a very interesting thing to find our path back to Asia, probably thats why we are so obsessed about Huns.

[hjernespiser]

I had a difficult time following Tamas' post and didn't understand exactly who he was responding to.

[Subu'atai]

Its a very strong heritage here, all the old kings from the Arpad house considered themselve Hun descendants.

But it's just your kings, how about the rest of the magyars?

[hjernespiser]

It is well known that the historians of the sedentary civilizations of the time used "infamous" ethnic names of one people and applied them to steppe peoples that lived in a similar manner, with similar culture, in the same historic territory. They were not writing for us today, but for their contemporaneous audience. When they wrote "Scythian" and meant Huns, they were invoking that audience's knowledge of history in order to communicate to their audience an idea of the Huns. It is no different with most of the foreign names for Magyars.

Here's what Denis Sinor wrote in his online "Outline": www.kroraina.com/hungar/ds_ohp.html

Constantine Porphyrogenitus informs us that the Hungarians whom he calls Turks, had the name Sabartoi asphaloi [15]. The most likely explanation of the second element is, that it is a nominative plural of the adjective asjaloV, "firm, reliable". As for the first term, it is generally considered as the name of the people Sabir~Savir. It must however be remembered that this people is ordinarily called Sabiroi in Greek sources [16]. Our knowledge of the history of the Sabirs is extremely scanty, and the little our sources teach us has been put to use in a most unsatisfactory manner. Some years ago I tried to straighten out the matter and I think I have shown convincingly one point which is, for our present purpose, of great importance: that the Sabirs lived up to the middle of the Vth century in Central Russia in the neighbourhood of the Ugrians [17].

The Hungarian delegation says only that they were previously called Sabartoi Asphaloi. But by whom? They do not say they called themselves Sabartoi Asphaloi, only that they were known to the Greeks, whom they were speaking with, by this name previously. Here's the Moravcsik translation:

They were not called Turks at that time, but had the name "Sabartoi asphaloi", for some reason or other.

Later in the same section it says:

Now, the Pechenegs who were previously called "Kangar" (for this "Kangar" was a name signifying nobility and valour amoung them)

So we're given explanation for what Kangar means but no explanation for Sabartoi asphaloi? It's just "for some reason or other"? WHY? Did the Hungarian delegation forget that detail? No! Because the name didn't mean anything to them. It was a Greek name used by some Greek-speaking people for Magyars before they started to be called Turkoi. And the simplest explanation is because the Greek-speakers used a name for this Magyar tribe that lived in the vicinity of another tribe called Sabirs that they knew were more famous. The Hungarian delegation knew this other name, just as Magyars know that English-speakers call them "Hungarian".

None of this reasoning requires us to know the ethnic identity of the Sabirs. The delegation didn't even attempt to say they were Sabirs, but that they were called Sabartoi with some qualifier by others. It doesn't matter if the Sabirs were Turks, Ugrians, or even Saka/Scyths (as Janos Harmatta suggests). The evidence we have points in the direction of a Hungarian delegation to the Byzantines referring to a foreign name that the Byzantines, being Greek-speakers, should have known. "You welcome us here as Turks, but we used to be known by this other name that you may be familiar with."

[benzin]

Does this instrument (Citera) familiar to anyone ? We took it from the steppes accordint to the sources, but I didnt find anything about it at other nations. Im curious wich asian tribes may use it.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=VAeYt-swWG0

[H. İhsan Erkoç]

Looks like a small version of the Tuvan yatkhan, Khakassian chatkhan and Arabic qānūn.

[hjernespiser]

So I have this book, called "Folk Music: Hungarian Musical Idiom" written by Balint Sarosi, which talks about the different Hungarian folk instruments. I'd love to share what it says about the citera with you all as soon as I locate where my copy went to! What I recall is that this citera is from the Alföld, where a lot of mixing of people from different parts of Hungary went on. It isn't found in the more settled parts and so it is believed to be relatively new. That isn't to say that the ancient Hungarians didn't have a similar instrument, only that this particular model may not be some sort of direct descendant to the one used by ancient Hungarians.

Here's the related Mansi sangkvyltap: english.toun.ru/excursion/music_instruments/sangkvyltap and www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3u9xdXO-28

[Ardavarz]

Jan 8, 2011 3:02:55 GMT 3 hjernespiser said:

ardavarz,

The -oi ending is considered to be the Greek plural, just like in Turkoi (the name written for the Hungarians in De Administrando). Asphali is also considered to be derived from the Greek word asphales.

Tamas,

Sabiroi is the name used by Byzantines for Sabirs in other documents. One problem to be resolved is how Sabir phonetically becomes Sabart in the languages spoken at the time. It isn't enough to make leaps of logic to match Sabir to Sabart. Another problem to resolve is how Siberia comes from Sabir. Then there's the belief that the original name is Syebir.

North-eastern Iranian plural suffix -tä is usually represented in Greek sources as -tai/-toi in tribal names. Thus the form "Sabartoi" could possibly arise from original "Sabir" (Sabar?) through some Scytho-Sarmatian (Alanic?) mediation. But this is just a guess.

Now I remember reading in Volga Bulgarian sources about some Bashkir tribe which was called Seber by the Huns because they have become allies of Balamber and this was the Hunnic word for "ally"'. It is also told that these Sebers have worshiped the dragon Majar. If this is true, maybe it has something to do with those Magyars in Bashkortostan mentioned by the medieval Islamic authors.

[hjernespiser]

Jan 15, 2011 0:28:42 GMT 3 Ardavarz said:

North-eastern Iranian plural suffix -tä is usually represented in Greek sources as -tai/-toi in tribal names. Thus the form "Sabartoi" could possibly arise from original "Sabir" (Sabar?) through some Scytho-Sarmatian (Alanic?) mediation. But this is just a guess.

Now I remember reading in Volga Bulgarian sources about some Bashkir tribe which was called Seber by the Huns because they have become allies of Balamber and this was the Hunnic word for "ally"'. It is also told that these Sebers have worshiped the dragon Majar. If this is true, maybe it has something to do with those Magyars in Bashkortostan mentioned by the medieval Islamic authors.

Interesting. The information in De Administrando says that some group of Magyars "went" east towards Persia and are still known by this name there. It is disputed that some group of Magyars went east. The Greek in De Administrando apparently doesn't use the word "went". It says that they were settled there towards Persia. Maybe the reference to Magyars as Sabartoi Asphaloi is from some Iranian language with Greek influence.

I don't know about your other information. Magyars were also called Bashkir and sources acknowledge that there were two different peoples called Bashkir. The ethnogenesis of the modern Bashkirs is usually not fixed until sometime around the 12th century CE.

[benzin]

Its not disputed that some magyar went east, there is uncountable evidence for not everyone came to the carpathian basin. At the end of the 12th century there were 3 different Hungary, on 3 different locations, very far from each other. One is where currently is, one is in the Volga - Kama region, east to Volga Bulgars, and one is in current day Ossetia, in the foots of Caucasus.

Jan 15, 2011 11:11:36 GMT 3 hjernespiser said:

Jan 15, 2011 0:28:42 GMT 3 Ardavarz said:

North-eastern Iranian plural suffix -tä is usually represented in Greek sources as -tai/-toi in tribal names. Thus the form "Sabartoi" could possibly arise from original "Sabir" (Sabar?) through some Scytho-Sarmatian (Alanic?) mediation. But this is just a guess.

Now I remember reading in Volga Bulgarian sources about some Bashkir tribe which was called Seber by the Huns because they have become allies of Balamber and this was the Hunnic word for "ally"'. It is also told that these Sebers have worshiped the dragon Majar. If this is true, maybe it has something to do with those Magyars in Bashkortostan mentioned by the medieval Islamic authors.

Interesting. The information in De Administrando says that some group of Magyars "went" east towards Persia and are still known by this name there. It is disputed that some group of Magyars went east. The Greek in De Administrando apparently doesn't use the word "went". It says that they were settled there towards Persia. Maybe the reference to Magyars as Sabartoi Asphaloi is from some Iranian language with Greek influence.

I don't know about your other information. Magyars were also called Bashkir and sources acknowledge that there were two different peoples called Bashkir. The ethnogenesis of the modern Bashkirs is usually not fixed until sometime around the 12th century CE.

[aynur]

From what I've learned, the Magyars were a confederation of many tribes from the Baraba steppes and the regions below. Many of those tribes could've been Ugric in origin who had long mixed with the Turks and inherited many cultural traits from them (nomadic and semi-nomadic lifestyle as opposed to reindeer herding amongst the Ugrians) while the non-Ugric tribes could've began using the Magyar language that was Uralic in origin universally.

No tribe or people in the steppes was 'ethnically pure' since different cultures came from all walks of life, be it Turkic, Ugric, Mongolic, Iranic or Slavic. Ranting 'HUNGARIANS ARE TURKS!' or "HUNGARIANS ARE SCYTHIANS!' sounds plain stupid and ignorant to me.

[H. İhsan Erkoç]

That's very right. For example, the Magyars were originally seven tribes but later, three Turkic tribes called Kabars joined them.