The Eighth Tribe, 1979 (6. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)
1979-11-01 / 11. szám
November, 1979 THE EIGHTH TRIBE Page 7 Holma, was an ardent advocate of Finnish-Sumerian linguistic relations. The Estonian scholar, Edgar Sacks (1966), studied the ancient names of European rivers and concluded that all of them make sense when interpreted in Estonian, and that Estonians did not come from the East but were originala inhabitants of Europe and migrated to the Baltic sea from Central Europe. In his 1948 publication S. Hattori, the celebrated Japanese linguist, remarked on the fact that Japanese who compared with 16 different languages of several language families. The languages he lists correspond rather well with those compared with Finn-ugorian. It is also apparent from his article that the authors of these proposals encountered the same rejection their Finn-ugorian equals have.) At first glance the publication of Mrs. Hary’s paper in a major Hungarian magazine appears to be a sign of changing attitudes, and an indication that further discussion of the subject may be forthcoming. I was about to acknowledge the wisdom of that decision when I discovered an editorial note somewhere else in the same issue: with the publication of Mrs. Hary’s paper we consider the topic closed. Over the past years I became aware of the existence of the extensive literature on Sumerian-Hungarian relationship. Like most native Hungarians who were brought up with the belief that our only linguistic relatives are the other Finn-ugorians I resented these books. As a scientist I nursed a feeling of solidarity with the academic linguists and considered the reading of such diletante “studies” a waste of time. However, some time ago, my father gave me one of these books and I felt obliged to page through it. I was impressed by the quality and the quantity of vocabulary coincidences. However, I was not impressed by the author’s conclusions and far-reaching historical interpretations. I read several other books, carefully separating observations from interpretations. My readings were not limited to Sumerian relations but included a number of others. After a rather short period of time I was astonished, confused and frustrated, all at the same time. The vocabulary coincidence between Hungarian and a large number of far-away languages was unbelievable. Yet, according to our linguists these apparent similarities are meaningless. Most of the references, given in table I, and others not listed, contained a large number of observations which I could not contradict: hundreds, and in some cases thousands, of vocabulary similarities, systematics of phoenetic developments, analysis of grammatical correspondances, and even some ethnographical parallels. My frustration was extensive and I have decided to spend some time on that subject and do some research. I am a crystallographer and have no expertiese in linguistics. However, scientific logic must be constant throughout the spectrum of sciences and with some reading of linguistic text books with appropriate cautiousness I felt that I should be able to understand why these apparent correlations are scientifically unsound and why they should be rejected. I could not possibly get engaged in studying all the different phases of the problem. So I had to choose one single topic, one which is sufficiently fundamental and affects the merits of most other phases. The comparisons of basic vocabularies appeared to be the most promising topic. When man first began to speak he must have started by assigning certain sounds and combinations of sounds to express a set of primitive concepts. The range of these concepts gradually increased and a primary vocabulary was soon established. Sometimes during that development he began to put words together to describe more complicated objects and to describe some happenings, and eventually develop a media for argumentation. If all those languages which were compared with Hungarian and are now disseminated over the entire globe were once in contact or were developed from common roots, that must have been at a time when the primary vocabulary was already developed but the grammar and other components of the language were still reasonably pliable. If this assumption is correct the words entered in the comparison of that rainbow of languages must be limited to primitive concepts. Such as: parts of the body, simple living functions, primitive human relations, descriptions of an uncivilized environment, and a collection of rudimentary abstract concepts. I have surveyed the words used by the various authors and found that, with a few exceptions, all were either within that limited category of concepts, or could have developed from that vocabulary. In the next step I have compiled a list of words, using only basic words, which were common to more than 2 or 3 languages. I took these words from the references of table I without changing their spelling and employing only occasional spot checks. The list contains several hundreds of entries. Sixteen of them are given in table II. For the sake of simplicity I have omitted the identification of the individual Polynesian and Dakota languages. There seems to be a conspicuous trace of correspondance between most of these words. Could that be just a figment of my imagination?
