The Eighth Hungarian Tribe, 1982 (9. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)
1982-12-01 / 12. szám
Page 6 THE EIGHTH HUNGARIAN TRIBE December, 1982 dences. Words loaned from Accadian should be considered; they are important indexes of history. If later there are compelling reasons, established by Sumerian research, for striking the word in question from the Sumerian vocabulary, we may drop the correspondence too — but we should not hurry. Posterity will correct our mistakes — these will not disprove our main thesis. The most typical objection to comparing Sumerian with Hungarian is as stated by a noted linguist, “It is very dangerous to compare a dead language of five thousand years ago with a living language, which appeared in writing only five hudred years ago.” To this we may answer that the first coherent Hungarian text known to us was written around 1,200 A.D. so it is about 750 years old. (Single words and many names are known from Latin documents of earlier times.) But it may be relevant, that even the earliest texts are perfectly understandable and only slightly removed from modern Hungarian, due to a great conservatism apparent in this branch of humanity. On the other hand, the bulk of Sumerian literature we know, was written down in the second millennium B.C. The distance between their date and of the first Hungarian document is roughly three times as much as our distance from from that famous sermon. There may be difficulties, but no reason to be completely deterred. The professional linguist, even if he is free enough to ingrained prejudices for listening to our arguments, will probably be reluctant to accept the number of phonetic changes which are possible between Sumerian and Hungarian. It is difficult to admit that Sumerian B may have either remained unchanged in the corresponding Hungarian word or changed into P, or V, or F (never into D or T). But here wie have to remind the linguist of the stormy history of the Hungarian nation. A thousand years ago, we know they lived in seven “stems” and 108 clans. They probably spoke different dialects. Two distinct languages spoken by the early Hungarians are documented in the Byzantine sources. It is more than probable, that the Sumero-Scythian linguistic heritage was transmitted by different strains. We know that the B—P change has happened already in Sumerian BAAR ‘white, bright’ appears also as PAAR. It is possible that the group of early Hungarians used the correspondence of this this word as VERŐ, while another used it as FEER, FEHÉR. Literary language accepted both with slightly different meanings, FEHÉR meaning “white, fair” and VERŐ meaning “light, sunshine.” While it is recognized that monosyllabic Sumerian may still cause many mistakes and that some correspondences may be fortuitous — it should be obvious that all foregoing cannot be mere chance or mere mistake. The percentage of clear correspondences between Sumerian roots and their Hungarian derivatives is far higher than the necessary minimum, five percent of the vocabulary, usually deemed sufficient for examining a relationship of the languages. The correspondences are clear, not only in those cultural concepts, which may be borrowed, but especially in the basic vocabulary of the two languages. While we need m,uch further research by experts, anyone able to shed ingrained prejudices and form new judgements on basis of new evidence, can already recognize that ancient Sumerian and living Hungarian are related. • • • At this point, one might say, that we said enough and now let us relax. Whether we succeeded in convincing the reader, or not, some day truth will prevail. Science proceeds with giant steps and we are on the eve of a breakthrough in linguistic research too. Soon the linguistic elements of the world’s languages will be fed into computers and degrees of relationship will be established with mathematical exactitude. Oppert testated his cruelly assailed theory to be vindicated by a better informed posterity. I could leave my cause to posterity that will use the computers; bless them. May I refer all those, who are still not willing to accept as fact the relationship of Sumerian and Hungarian, to the great mechanical brains of tomorrow. May I also bid them farewell here. May I invite those who have the courage to believe now, to read further. CONCLUSION Thank you dear reader, for having followed m,e around in the dense forests and dangerous swamps of ancient Scythia. I fondly hope that I did not mislead you. We were, like the legendary hunters of the White Stag, pursueing something shining and beautiful; a historical truth hidden by forces of evil, behind sinister thickets and poisonous vapors. The miraculous Stag was more than a stag and the truth of the Sumerian origin of the Hungarians is more than a truth. It happen to be in the same
