Post by oszkarthehun on Dec 16, 2010 5:11:56 GMT -5
WBB said ...
" It's because they find it impossible to believe that Ugric people were equestrian horde tribes, even i found hard to believe that Ugric or Uralic people imitates like Turks. Since these people are more like an Eskimo cultured to me, they go hunting in the woods, fishing in the lake and live in wooden huts or even Iglo rather than living in Yurts like Turks.
Those Uralic-Ugric culture is not much of a culture to me, since Magyar culture is something more richer and powerful than this. "
WBB I told you I would bring some information about this point.
So below I am quoting from Denis Sinor he was Professor of Asian Studies and has written several books about Asia and Mongols etc, his article I quote from below is titled "Outlines of Hungarian Prehistory"
I will give the link for the full article but I will only quote points here in reference to our discussion relating to your above quote.
The Outlines of Hungarian Prehistory
.
Denis Sinor (Journal of World History 4(3), 513-540)
If the study of the Turkish loanwords cannot help us to locate with greater precision the probable place of Hungarian-Turkish contacts, it can shed valuable light on the cultural influence exerted by the Turks on the Hungarians. Under this aspect the study of the vocabulary is most revealing, for it shows that the majority of the Hungarian words concerning agriculture and animal-breeding are of Turkish origin: wheat, barley, hops, hemp, fruit, apple, pear, nut, pea, plough, scythe, bull, ox, calf, ram, heifer, wether, pig, hen, cheese, wool, etc. have Hungarian names of Turkish origin. Practically the whole agricultural terminology of Hungarian is either Turkish or Slavonic in its origin. Among the names of domestic animals there is one conspicuous absentee: the name of the horse is of Finno-Ugrian origin.
It has been argued with great emphasis that the difference between the Finno-Ugrian and the Turkish ways of living is so profound as to be unbridgeable, and that it is hardly imaginable that Finno-Ugrians should, in the ordinary course of events, become a "Turkish-type" people. Although in recent years this theory seems to have lost some ground [22], it dominated research in Hungarian prehistory for so long that it may not be superfluous to show all its absurdity.
The whole argument is based on fallacy for it takes for granted, without attempting to prove it, that there is a "Turkish way of living". The equation: horse-breeding nomadic warriors = Turks or Mongols,— is simply false. There can be no doubt that some of the greatest nomadic empires were built up by Turks and Mongols, but these states represent the highest stage in the development of peoples of Central Eurasia, a stage which comparatively few of them have ever reached.
A large proportion of Turks and Mongols were forest-dwellers just as the Finno-Ugrians, and only some of them developed the way of living that became associated with their names. We have historical records to show that the Turks themselves were originally a non-equestrian people and as far as the Mongols are concerned the duality between forest- and steppe-dwellers goes all through their history.
We have — it must be said — no historical records of any other Finno-Ugrian people than the Hungarians taking to steppe-life. But if we consider the poverty of our information concerning the languages of the many nomad peoples who successively populated the steppe-belt of South Russia we can hardly attach any importance to this lack of any other example. If the Hungarians had disappeared as did the many other peoples who in the first millennium populated the steppes north of the Black Sea, they would certainly be considered today as Turks.
It will be remembered that the Hungarian word for "horse" and a certain number of technical terms connected with horse-breeding are of Finno-Ugrian origin. There is no reason to suppose — as it has been in some quarters — that the cleavage between Finno-Ugrians and Turks was that between primitive hunters or even food-gatherers and horse-breeding nomads.
There is no need to postulate a break — possibly due to outside influence such as a conquest by another people — in the cultural evolution of the Hungarians, and it would be even more rash to want to ascribe any such break to Turkish influence.
The study of Hungarian vocabulary has revealed an important Turkish influence in the domain of agriculture and stock-breeding (with the exception of the horse), that is to say that this influence has exerted itself precisely in the least warlike activities. It is almost as if Hungarians would have become a sedentary people under Turkish influence.
This obstacle has usually been got round by ascribing this influence to the supposedly more peaceful Bulgar-Turks. There are both theoretical and factual errors in this reasoning. Theoretically, if we admit the existence of non-nomadic Turks we weaken the — in my view untenable — hypothesis that Turks must be identified with horse-breeding nomads. Moreover we would still have to look for the people under whose influence the Hungarians made what is thought to be the great jump in their cultural evolution.
On the factual side there is the weakness that this influence cannot be limited to Bulgar-Turks. If the Hungarian word for e.g. "the ox" has undoubtedly been borrowed from Bulgar-Turkish, we cannot make the same claim on behalf of the majority of other terms connected with agriculture or stock-breeding.
They could have come into Hungarian from any other Turkish dialect. In any case it is impossible to have it both ways: the Turkish influence exerted itself on the Hungarians either by bringing them to a sedentary way of living, or by transforming them into nomadic, mounted warriors. I do not see any obstacle in admitting a two-fold influence, but with the ethnological premisses usually accepted in Hungarian prehistory this is not possible.
Particular attention should be paid to the Turkish loanwords of Hungarian [5]. As we have already mentioned, such importance used to be attached to their presence that on their account scholars were ready to consider Hungarian as a Turkish language. In fact carefully compiled linguistic statistics have shown that only about 9 % of the word-roots are of Turkish origin, a rather small figure when we consider that Latin words amount to 8 % of the Hungarian vocabulary [6]. In a most remarkable study — a real gem of Turcology — the Hungarian scholar Gombocz [7] has shown that the phonetic structure of some of these loanwords presents phonetic features peculiar to the Chuvash language. Chuvash, an extraordinary Turkish dialect is nowadays spoken in the Middle-Volga region and it is thought to be the continuation of the language of the Volga-Bulgars [8]. Gombocz proposed well over two hundred etymologies, most of them reliable, but he made one mistake which proved to be of consequence to Hungarian prehistory. Having discovered that some loan-words show Chuvash-type characteristics, Gombocz hastily concluded that all the other Turkish loan-words were also of Bulgarturkish origin. In fact only a small number of these loanwords can with certainty be ascribed to this particular dialect: the rest could come from any other Turkish idiom. Therefore, whilst there can be no doubt that we must postulate some Volga-Bulgar influence on the Hungarians, it would mean going beyond the available evidence to attach to these few words an importance they do not possess and assume a considerable well-nigh decisive Bulgarturkish influence on Hungarian history.
In western languages the Magyars go by names such as Hungarians, Hongrois, Ungar, etc. which all go back to a Latin plural Ungri first attested in 862, and a Greek Ungroi in use in Byzance from the 10th century onwards [13].
It is generally thought that all these forms derive from the name of a Turkish tribe, the Onogur, known since the middle of the Vth century. The name passed through Slavonic intermediary into the various European languages and the phonetical evolution can be explained satisfactorily.
There is however a problem connected with the transmission of the name, a problem which, so far as I know, has not received attention. How is it that the Slavonic form of the name of a Turkish people — obviously unknown in Europe — came to be adopted by Europe as the name of the Hungarians? This is all the more surprising as the only civilised people, the Byzantines, who at this epoch had contacts with the Hungarians did not, at that time, use this name to designate the Hungarians. It must also be remembered that the Byzantine historians distinguish between Onogurs ('Onogouroi) and Hungarians (Ouggroi).
The problem is further complicated by the fact that the same name is also applied by the Russians to other Finno-Ugrian peoples. From the 11th century onwards a name Ugria (and variants) occurs in Russian sources, and although its application varies slightly, it is applied to the whole or to some parts of the Ugrian peoples. The linguistic technical term "Ugrian" has been adopted from this Russian denomination.
www.kroraina.com/hungar/ds_ohp.html
" It's because they find it impossible to believe that Ugric people were equestrian horde tribes, even i found hard to believe that Ugric or Uralic people imitates like Turks. Since these people are more like an Eskimo cultured to me, they go hunting in the woods, fishing in the lake and live in wooden huts or even Iglo rather than living in Yurts like Turks.
Those Uralic-Ugric culture is not much of a culture to me, since Magyar culture is something more richer and powerful than this. "
WBB I told you I would bring some information about this point.
So below I am quoting from Denis Sinor he was Professor of Asian Studies and has written several books about Asia and Mongols etc, his article I quote from below is titled "Outlines of Hungarian Prehistory"
I will give the link for the full article but I will only quote points here in reference to our discussion relating to your above quote.
The Outlines of Hungarian Prehistory
.
Denis Sinor (Journal of World History 4(3), 513-540)
If the study of the Turkish loanwords cannot help us to locate with greater precision the probable place of Hungarian-Turkish contacts, it can shed valuable light on the cultural influence exerted by the Turks on the Hungarians. Under this aspect the study of the vocabulary is most revealing, for it shows that the majority of the Hungarian words concerning agriculture and animal-breeding are of Turkish origin: wheat, barley, hops, hemp, fruit, apple, pear, nut, pea, plough, scythe, bull, ox, calf, ram, heifer, wether, pig, hen, cheese, wool, etc. have Hungarian names of Turkish origin. Practically the whole agricultural terminology of Hungarian is either Turkish or Slavonic in its origin. Among the names of domestic animals there is one conspicuous absentee: the name of the horse is of Finno-Ugrian origin.
It has been argued with great emphasis that the difference between the Finno-Ugrian and the Turkish ways of living is so profound as to be unbridgeable, and that it is hardly imaginable that Finno-Ugrians should, in the ordinary course of events, become a "Turkish-type" people. Although in recent years this theory seems to have lost some ground [22], it dominated research in Hungarian prehistory for so long that it may not be superfluous to show all its absurdity.
The whole argument is based on fallacy for it takes for granted, without attempting to prove it, that there is a "Turkish way of living". The equation: horse-breeding nomadic warriors = Turks or Mongols,— is simply false. There can be no doubt that some of the greatest nomadic empires were built up by Turks and Mongols, but these states represent the highest stage in the development of peoples of Central Eurasia, a stage which comparatively few of them have ever reached.
A large proportion of Turks and Mongols were forest-dwellers just as the Finno-Ugrians, and only some of them developed the way of living that became associated with their names. We have historical records to show that the Turks themselves were originally a non-equestrian people and as far as the Mongols are concerned the duality between forest- and steppe-dwellers goes all through their history.
We have — it must be said — no historical records of any other Finno-Ugrian people than the Hungarians taking to steppe-life. But if we consider the poverty of our information concerning the languages of the many nomad peoples who successively populated the steppe-belt of South Russia we can hardly attach any importance to this lack of any other example. If the Hungarians had disappeared as did the many other peoples who in the first millennium populated the steppes north of the Black Sea, they would certainly be considered today as Turks.
It will be remembered that the Hungarian word for "horse" and a certain number of technical terms connected with horse-breeding are of Finno-Ugrian origin. There is no reason to suppose — as it has been in some quarters — that the cleavage between Finno-Ugrians and Turks was that between primitive hunters or even food-gatherers and horse-breeding nomads.
There is no need to postulate a break — possibly due to outside influence such as a conquest by another people — in the cultural evolution of the Hungarians, and it would be even more rash to want to ascribe any such break to Turkish influence.
The study of Hungarian vocabulary has revealed an important Turkish influence in the domain of agriculture and stock-breeding (with the exception of the horse), that is to say that this influence has exerted itself precisely in the least warlike activities. It is almost as if Hungarians would have become a sedentary people under Turkish influence.
This obstacle has usually been got round by ascribing this influence to the supposedly more peaceful Bulgar-Turks. There are both theoretical and factual errors in this reasoning. Theoretically, if we admit the existence of non-nomadic Turks we weaken the — in my view untenable — hypothesis that Turks must be identified with horse-breeding nomads. Moreover we would still have to look for the people under whose influence the Hungarians made what is thought to be the great jump in their cultural evolution.
On the factual side there is the weakness that this influence cannot be limited to Bulgar-Turks. If the Hungarian word for e.g. "the ox" has undoubtedly been borrowed from Bulgar-Turkish, we cannot make the same claim on behalf of the majority of other terms connected with agriculture or stock-breeding.
They could have come into Hungarian from any other Turkish dialect. In any case it is impossible to have it both ways: the Turkish influence exerted itself on the Hungarians either by bringing them to a sedentary way of living, or by transforming them into nomadic, mounted warriors. I do not see any obstacle in admitting a two-fold influence, but with the ethnological premisses usually accepted in Hungarian prehistory this is not possible.
Particular attention should be paid to the Turkish loanwords of Hungarian [5]. As we have already mentioned, such importance used to be attached to their presence that on their account scholars were ready to consider Hungarian as a Turkish language. In fact carefully compiled linguistic statistics have shown that only about 9 % of the word-roots are of Turkish origin, a rather small figure when we consider that Latin words amount to 8 % of the Hungarian vocabulary [6]. In a most remarkable study — a real gem of Turcology — the Hungarian scholar Gombocz [7] has shown that the phonetic structure of some of these loanwords presents phonetic features peculiar to the Chuvash language. Chuvash, an extraordinary Turkish dialect is nowadays spoken in the Middle-Volga region and it is thought to be the continuation of the language of the Volga-Bulgars [8]. Gombocz proposed well over two hundred etymologies, most of them reliable, but he made one mistake which proved to be of consequence to Hungarian prehistory. Having discovered that some loan-words show Chuvash-type characteristics, Gombocz hastily concluded that all the other Turkish loan-words were also of Bulgarturkish origin. In fact only a small number of these loanwords can with certainty be ascribed to this particular dialect: the rest could come from any other Turkish idiom. Therefore, whilst there can be no doubt that we must postulate some Volga-Bulgar influence on the Hungarians, it would mean going beyond the available evidence to attach to these few words an importance they do not possess and assume a considerable well-nigh decisive Bulgarturkish influence on Hungarian history.
In western languages the Magyars go by names such as Hungarians, Hongrois, Ungar, etc. which all go back to a Latin plural Ungri first attested in 862, and a Greek Ungroi in use in Byzance from the 10th century onwards [13].
It is generally thought that all these forms derive from the name of a Turkish tribe, the Onogur, known since the middle of the Vth century. The name passed through Slavonic intermediary into the various European languages and the phonetical evolution can be explained satisfactorily.
There is however a problem connected with the transmission of the name, a problem which, so far as I know, has not received attention. How is it that the Slavonic form of the name of a Turkish people — obviously unknown in Europe — came to be adopted by Europe as the name of the Hungarians? This is all the more surprising as the only civilised people, the Byzantines, who at this epoch had contacts with the Hungarians did not, at that time, use this name to designate the Hungarians. It must also be remembered that the Byzantine historians distinguish between Onogurs ('Onogouroi) and Hungarians (Ouggroi).
The problem is further complicated by the fact that the same name is also applied by the Russians to other Finno-Ugrian peoples. From the 11th century onwards a name Ugria (and variants) occurs in Russian sources, and although its application varies slightly, it is applied to the whole or to some parts of the Ugrian peoples. The linguistic technical term "Ugrian" has been adopted from this Russian denomination.
www.kroraina.com/hungar/ds_ohp.html