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Beliefs and hypotheses in Uralistics

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Honti L.

Magyar Nyelv (Hungarian Language)

2004

vol. 100

issue 1

1-15

This paper discusses certain assumptions that have been made within Uralistics, some of which are closely connected to the remote past of the Hungarian language. The author provides a critical survey of some unfounded hypotheses - or rather beliefs - that have been published over the past few decades and attempts to counter them with well-founded hypotheses. The specific issues are as follows: 1. the original (Proto-Uralic/Proto-Finno-Ugric) order of possessive suffixes and case suffixes; 2. the age and origin of Hungarian preverbs; 3. the explanation of Hungarian numerals exhibiting a locative structure (e.g. 'tiz-en -egy' (eleven), literally 'one - on-ten') that traces them back to Slavic; 4. the emergence of congruence between a noun and its adjectival modifier in Hungarian and other Uralic languages; 5. the issue of whether Proto-Ugric really existed.

Myths about the origin of the Hungarian language

100%

Honti L.

Nyelvtudomanyi Kozlemenyek (Linguistic Studies)

2004

vol. 101

137-151

Ever since the Hungarian language has been written, its genetic affiliation has been a recurring question. The evidence accumulating from the eighteenth century onwards proves that Hungarian belongs to the Uralic family. For the past fifty years, ideas of a more aristocratic and romantic ancestry have flooded bookshops and all forms of media. These ideas are promulgated by people who (1) entirely lack scientific training or (2) are professionals in some branch of science other than linguistics or (3) have received training in linguistics and actively work on one of its subdisciplines. Consequently there are large differences in argumentation and the content of these 'theories'. Those in groups (1) and (2) tend to make pronouncements on historical and comparative linguistics that show total incompetence, whereas those in (3) tend to be incompetent in specific questions they address and often produce large quantities of pompous misinformation that only serves to deceive the unsuspecting reader. The present paper describes the major characteristics of such works but does not mention the names of their authors because those who are totally untrained do not deserve to be named in a linguistic forum, whereas those who are perhaps justly respected specialists of other fields deserve to be tactfully left unidentified.

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1 Magyar Nyelv (Hungarian Language)

1 Nyelvtudomanyi Kozlemenyek (Linguistic Studies)

2 Honti L.

2 2004

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Beliefs and hypotheses in Uralistics

Myths about the origin of the Hungarian language