On the need to reinterpret early Turkic-Hungarian language relations
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.18349/MagyarNyelv.2023.4.403Keywords:
historical sociolinguistics, history of Hungarian language, linguistic reconstruction, Turkic–Hungarian language contactsAbstract
In the last hundred years, a consensus has emerged within Turkology on the study of pre-11th century Turkish-Hungarian relations. This includes, for example, that words were introduced into Hungarian in several waves from several Turkic languages; that language contact lasted for several hundred years; that most of the words were introduced into Hungarian within the Khazar Empire. The reconstruction of early Hungarian history has always been a major aspect of the research. In my paper I argue that with the traditional view of language one cannot answer the question which people spoke the source languages, nor how many Turkic languages the late prehistoric Hungarian language came into contact with: it is possible that it was only one, and this cannot be fitted into the R-Turkic-Turkic dichotomy; it is also possible that the contact was very intensive and lasted only a few decades. I propose a socio-historical linguistic approach for a better understanding of the language history, which I believe will require a rethinking of the previously generally accepted answers.
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