Makkay János: A magyarság keltezése – A Jász-Nagykun-Szolnok Megyei Múzeumok közleményei 48. (1994)
Ás conceived by present day Hungarian linguists, *Proto- and Old-Hungarian are the early phases of Hungarian after its final separation from other members of the Proto-Ugric branch. This was after it had moved out of the original homeland of the Proto-Ugric tribes, as occurred at latest in the 4th C. AD. Proto-Hungarian is usually dating to before 895 and Old-Hungarian to after 895 AD. There are no Proto-Hungarian written sources, and Old Hungarian written documents are very sporadic, when they exist at all. The boundary between these two stages is placed at the Hungarian Conquest itself, i.e. in 985 AD. when the fleeing Árpádian tribes (with or without their womenfolk and children) crossed the passes of the Eastern and Southern Carpathian Range in either three weeks or three months according to different versions. Naturally the question arises whether this very short interval of three weeks or three months was sufficient to permit adaptive and diachronic changes of sufficient magnitude in linguistic features, to signal the birth of the Old-Hungarian language. The exodus was probably the result of strong Turkish intervention and intrusions (of the Pechenegs) into their former territory between the Don and and Lower Danube rivers. In reality the obvious domination of the Proto-Hungarian speakers by their Turkic overlords must have been more than simple infiltration by Turkish speaking warriors who subsequently made up a linguistic superstratum in the conquered area. According to the orthodox model this process was considered to be the first and final amalgamation of the Turkic and early Hungarian (Finno-Ugric) languages and ethnic elements. It was thought to have taken place perhaps in the 5th —9th, or only in the 7th —9th centuries AD. The area where it happened could have been the South Russian steppe, the Kuban area, or the marshy territories of the Black Sea littoral (the so-called Meotis ). As the model continues, these Onogur Turkic —dominated Proto-Hungarians [Onogurs+Finno-Ugrians] had lived as close neighbours of late Iranian Alanian tribes, from whom probably come most of the Late Iranian loan words found in the Hungarian language. Hungarian research opinion considers that these are adstratal loan-words in the early Hungarian language, borrowed when these tribes (as already amalgamated Chuvashian Onogur —Bolgár and Proto —Hungarian ethnics) were living in the area of the northern 202
