Makkay János: A magyarság keltezése – A Jász-Nagykun-Szolnok Megyei Múzeumok közleményei 48. (1994)
Hungarian from SW and Old (or "Church") Bulgarian before AD. 895. Hungarian linguists, however, naturally reject this, being of the opinion that the existence of such early Proto-Hungarian speakers in the Carpathian Basin has not yet been established (see chapter 3.6.1.!). The same is true with the so-called reserved nasals in Hungarian loan-words mostly from South Slavic, when these words (for a list see chapter 3.6.2.!) have sound conjunctions of о + m, о + n, a + m, e + m, e + n retaining the original Slavic nasals g and p. These primary nasal sounds of Common and Old Slavic started to transform into denasalised sounds in the 10th century AD. (before the jer- transformations). For this reason the borrowings into Hungarian must have occurred well before the middle of the 10th century AD. The borrowing of the fifty or so words with primary Slavic nasals could also have taken place between AD. 895 and 950 (as most of our linguists think); but taking into consideration the shortness of the period possible, only 50 years or so, it should also be borne in mind that all or many of these words could have been brought into Old-Hungarian before AD. 895 and that the borrowers were Proto-Hungarian speaking groups of the Late Avar period. We should mention that place names with retained primary Slavic nasals can also be found in the early Hungarian toponymy of the archaic Mezőföld dialect (i.e. place names such as Gerend, Dombró, Gambuc, Csongva, Dombó; see chapter 2.11.8.) together with characteristic early Hungarian appellatives (see chapter 3.4.1!). They support the thesis proposed above that they were borrowed into Hungarian from Slavic before the 895 Conquest, and that this took place in the Carpathian Basin. This would show clearly that speakers of Proto —Hungarian were already living in the Carpathian Basin before the coming of Arpád's people. Another group of evidence concerned with early borrowings into Hungarian suggests that the first borrowers of some "Hungarian" words, in this case ethnic names were speakers of Turkic, or that the borrowing from South Slavic took place in the Carpathian Basin before the AD. 895 Conquest (see chapter 3.7.!). The origin of the various Hungarian words for peoples are of interest here. The most important of these are Jew/Jewish (zsidó), Russian (orosz and ruszki), Vikings and Normans (varang /várong), Greek (görög), Alanians (eszlár/oszlár, jász and varsány), German (német), Bolgár/Bulgár or 219
