# Huns and Hungarians **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [August 30, 2011, 2:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/huns-and-hungarians/594631 "2011-08-30T14:55:43Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2011, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/huns-and-hungarians/594631/21 "2011-09-01T16:06:49Z")
> [@Johanna](#): > > I was intrigued by the theory advanced by Professor Pulleyblank that the Hunnic language belonged to the Yeniseian language family. Probably because I watched too much Monty Python in my youth, this sentence struck me as something entirely made up. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![wintertime](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c68b51/32.png) [@wintertime](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wintertime)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2011, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/huns-and-hungarians/594631/22 "2011-09-01T16:39:25Z")
**Johanna** , do the Imbak still speak their language? Last time I read something about Dene-Causasian, the author was 
 quite creative in his assumptions. But the idea is fascinating that we might be able to identify (said hesitantly) a proto-language that was in use before the Neolithic Revolution started. ---
**Author:** ![antonio107](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/7ea924/32.png) [@antonio107](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/antonio107)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2011, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/huns-and-hungarians/594631/23 "2011-09-01T21:16:41Z")
> [@psychonaut](#): > > Germans invaded Hungary a grand total of once, in 1944. I doubt their presence of a few months had much impact on the gene pool. Besides, any significant admixture would have occurred centuries earlier when Hungarian kings invited ethnic Germans to settle in various parts of the country. I was referring more to the various Austrian conquests, though I suppose that it s highly problematic to call them a pan-Germanic people. My bad! :smack: ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2011, 10:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/huns-and-hungarians/594631/24 "2011-09-01T22:54:17Z")
> [@wintertime](#): > > **Johanna** , do the Imbak still speak their language? Never heard of them. > [@](#): > > Last time I read something about Dene-Causasian, the author was .. quite creative in his assumptions. But the idea is fascinating that we might be able to identify (said hesitantly) a proto-language that was in use before the Neolithic Revolution started. Like how in Basque, the words for knife and ax are derived from the word for stone, suggesting a Neolithic level of technology? Oh my, do people who do linguistics for sport ever have fun with that one. Indo-European has only been taken back to the upper Neolithic. I think there’s a stone ax in Russian, too. So naturally there are those who dream of pushing back the veil of the past. Sometimes dreamers find what they were after. Like Dene-Yeniseian, which was once a fringe theory and is now mainstream. ---
**Author:** ![wintertime](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c68b51/32.png) [@wintertime](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wintertime)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2011, 11:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/huns-and-hungarians/594631/25 "2011-09-01T23:26:46Z")
Imbak is just the tribal name for the northern part of the ethnicity that we know as Ket; they were still a clearly defined group during the late 1990s. A friend of mine wrote something from an anthropologist’s point of view about them and we discussed his ideas so often that I still remember bits and pieces about the Yeniseians, the DNA studies and the linguistic evidence that show that they differ from the other Siberian people. Just don’t ask me for any details. ---
**Author:** ![aesop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5f8ce5/32.png) [@aesop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aesop)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2011, 5:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/huns-and-hungarians/594631/26 "2011-09-02T05:18:02Z")
The [Székely](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sz%C3%A9kelys) of Transylvania maintain they are the descendants of the Huns. The historical links are tenuous at best, but arguing this point with a Székely is strongly contraindicated! ---
**Author:** ![psychonaut](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/psychonaut/32/4655_2.png) [@psychonaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/psychonaut)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2011, 7:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/huns-and-hungarians/594631/27 "2011-09-02T07:17:55Z")
> [@antonio107](#): > > I was referring more to the various Austrian conquests, though I suppose that it s highly problematic to call them a pan-Germanic people. My bad! :smack: Various Austrian conquests? Maybe I don’t know as much as I thought about Hungarian history, but the only Austrian conquest I’m aware of is when the Habsburgs took Hungary from the Ottomans. The rule was quite autocratic at first, but attempts at Germanification were resisted (at times violently). In any case I don’t think the Habsburgs pursued such policies through population transfer—at least, not to the same extent as Soviet Russification. ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2011, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/huns-and-hungarians/594631/28 "2011-09-02T18:40:21Z")
The SzĂ©kely (romantic Hun wishes aside) seem to have been one of the TĂŒrk tribes that joined up with the Magyars during the alliance of the Ten Arrows. When the Magyars left that arrangement on the Caspian steppes and moved west to Europe, the SzĂ©kely chose to go with them, and settled in Transylvania, adjacent to Hungary. They dropped their original Turkic language and spoke Hungarian, but until the 19th century wrote with a runic-looking alphabet that shared features with the Orkhon script used for Old Turkish by the GöktĂŒrks. [The map 565 AD by Talessman](http://www.worldhistorymaps.info/images/East-Hem_565ad.jpg) shows the Magyars on the Caspian steppe, neighboring the Bashqort (Bashkirs) of the southern Urals. The Magyars were included within the GöktĂŒrk Khaganate at that point in history. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/huns-and-hungarians/594631.md?page=1)