Alternative theories of Hungarian language origins
Vámbéry's first large linguistic work, entitled "Magyar és török-tatár nyelvekbeli szóegyezések"[1] and published in 1869–70, was the casus belli of the "Ugric-Turkic War" (Hungarian: Ugor-török háború), which started as a scientific dispute, but quickly turned into a bitter feud lasting for two decades.
In this work, Vámbéry tried to demonstrate, with the help of word comparisons, that as a result of the intermingling of the early Hungarians with Turkic peoples, the Hungarian language gained a distinct dual character as Ugric and Turkic albeit it is Ugric in origin, so he presented a variant of linguistic contact theory.
[5] The Finno-Ugrist Pál Hunfalvy [de; eo; hu] widened the front of the "Ugric-Turk War" with his book "Magyarország ethnographiája.
), mentions, that the Jews are more prolific than other peoples, so the quickly growing number of them presents a real menace for the nation (p. 420.
), and stresses what an important and eminent role the Germans played in the development of Hungarian culture and economy (p. 424.).
",[7] and published in 1882, Vámbéry went a step further, and presented a newer version of his theory, in which he claimed that the Hungarian nation and language are Turkic in origin, and the Finno-Ugric element in them is a result of later contact and intermingling.
"...I see a compound people in Hungarians, in which not the Finno-Ugric, but the Turkic-Tatar component gives the true core..." "...a magyarban vegyülék népet látok, a melyben nem finn-ugor, hanem török-tatár elem képezi a tulajdonképeni magvat..." in: Vámbéry Ármin: A magyarok eredete.
Turanist scientists did not write such things about the Finno-Ugric peoples, and Vámbéry and his followers mentioned these kins of Hungarians with due respect.
In reality it was coined by the Finno-Ugrist Ferdinánd Barna, in his work "Vámbéry Ármin A magyarok eredete czímű műve néhány főbb állításának bírálata."
[8] Vámbéry held to his scientific theory about the mixed origin of the Hungarian language and people until his death.
Linguist Gábor Bálint de Szentkatolna was the first to systematize and represent the theory of a Kabardian-Hungarian language group.
In his book A honfoglalás revíziója ("Revision of the Conquest"), the linguist tries to prove the relation not only from the lingual side but from historical and cultural aspects as well.
According to his theory, the Huns did not fully merge with the other nomadic people migrating to Europe, with some of them staying in the Caucasus region, and others returning to the Carpathian Basin.
The most major error in his theory is that he handled Kabardian as a fully isolated language, claiming that it changed very little, ignoring the local linguistic evolution.
Sándor issued his writings with the title Magyar és a kabard nyelv viszonya ("Hungarian and Kabardian languages' relation").
This theory was picked up by Jingyi Gao who argued that lexical evidence shows that Hungarian has multiple loanwords from a supposedly Yeniseian Hunnic language.
According to it, the Sumerian and Hungarian languages would be related and the ancestors of both peoples would have had contact in the past and share a common origin.
Rédei claims that the introduction of Hungarian Finno-Ugric origin was met with disapproval because of the theory's clear anti-national message and political purpose.
