Makkay János: A magyarság keltezése – A Jász-Nagykun-Szolnok Megyei Múzeumok közleményei 48. (1994)

of whom had personal names which were Proto- and Old-Hungarian in etymology and character — as opposed to the Turkic names of the well off and the ruling class, i.e. of the followers of Árpád from the Conquest in 895-896 AD. Considering these facts and in view of the strong Turkic characteristics of Árpád's people as shown above, it is not easy to believe that the people of the seven conquering tribes in 895-896 were speakers of Proto- or Old-Hungarian. Of course, there remains much need for direct evidence, but the fact is that before 1002 (or 1055) AD. we do not have so much as a single word or contemporary source which would show that speakers of Old-Hungarian ever lived in the Carpathian Basin. The orthodox theory of course used to refer to another aspect of this fact, i.e. that no source indicates that speakers of Proto- or Old-Hungarian lived in this area before 895 AD. The case of Borsod, however, refutes even this. The anonymous Latin chronicler recorded around the end of the 12. century AD that one of the military commanders of Árpád, Borsu, (son of Böngér, one of the Kabarian tribal leaders), vero accepta licentia [very probably of Árpád] egressus felici fortuna collecta multitudine rusticorum iuxta fluvium Buldua castrum constrwdt, quod vocatum est a populo illó Borsod eo, quod parvum fuerit,... The populus ille (mostly poor peasants) spoke a language which was different from the tongue of Bors(u) (a Turkic personal name!) and these local peasants — who were clearly already living in the area in 895 AD. — used the diminutive suffix -d, which is one of the most characteristic grammatical elements in Proto- and Old-Hungarian. The only possible conclusion is that the native people around the Borsod fortress in 900 AD. were speakers of Proto-Hungarian. They applied a characteristic Hungarian suffix to the name of the Turkic (Kabarian) conqueror Bors. The place-name Borsod simply means that the fortress belonged to Bors. Speakers of Proto- and Old-Hungarian therefore must have been living here before the coming of Arpad's people in 895—896!!! (see chapter 2.8.1.!). Chapter 2.9. summarises data relating the names of Árpád's people in Persian, Arabic, Byzantine and other literary sources of the 9th

—11th centuries AD. The most common expression denoting Árpád's people was the turks or turks, rarely sabartoi asphaloi (sabir 211