THE HUNS

[don_willard]

Why were the Germans of WWII called Huns?
I thought the Huns were a tribe led by Atilla the Hun
that piled up skulls on their way west into Europe and then settled in Hungary and became Hungarians. But this raises another issue, what about the Magyars? I heard that the Magyars became the Hungarians! And is the Hungarian language Magyar or Hun? I know it is related to Esthonian, Finnish, and Lappish as part of the Ural-Altaic or Finno-Ugric language group unrelated to Indo-European. Who were the Ugrians and the Altai?

[Andy]

I’m not sure about the answer, but as for usage, Brits use it quite often in a jocular, or possibly nasty way, to refer to our friendly teutonic neighbours

M-W says of this:

2 a often not capitalized : a person who is wantonly destructive : VANDAL b usually disparaging : GERMAN; especially : a German soldier

[Andy]

The whole entry

Main Entry: Hun
Pronunciation: 'h&n
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English, from Old English Hunas, plural, from Late Latin Hunni, plural
Date: before 12th century
=1 : a member of a nomadic central Asian people gaining control of a large part of central
=and eastern Europe under Attila about A.D. 450
=2 a often not capitalized : a person who is wantonly destructive : VANDAL b usually =disparaging : GERMAN; especially : a German soldier

[TomH]

According to the OED, the immediate source for “Hun” to mean “German” was a speech delivered by Wilhelm II to the German troops about to sail for China on 27 July 1900. From The Times, 30 July 1900:

According to the Bremen Weser Zeitung the Emperor said [27 July at Bremerhaven]:–‘…No quarter will be given, no prisoners will be taken. Let all who fall into your hands be at your mercy. Just as the Huns a thousand years ago, under the leadership of Etzel (Attila) gained a reputation in virtue of which they still live in historical tradition, so may the name of Germany become known in such a manner in China that no Chinaman will ever again even dare to look askance at a German.’

There are a number of other examples of “Hun” being used in relation to the Germans in China in 1900. The usage seems to have been resurrected in Britain a few years later at the outbreak of the Great War.

[nebuli]

I thought the Huns were a tribe led by Atilla the Hun
that piled up skulls on their way west into Europe and then settled in Hungary and became Hungarians. But this raises another issue, what about the Magyars? I heard that the Magyars became the Hungarians! And is the Hungarian language Magyar or Hun? I know it is related to Esthonian, Finnish, and Lappish as part of the Ural-Altaic or Finno-Ugric language group unrelated to Indo-European. Who were the Ugrians and the Altai?

Although the Huns did settle in the area now called Hungary (among other places), modern Hungarians are the descendants of the Magyars, and the language of Hungary is Magyar. Some scholars believe that the Turkic language Chuvash, spoken in some areas along the Volga river in Russia, is descended from the language of the Huns. As you said Magyar is a Finno-Ugrian language. Ugrian is the name given to the branch that includes Magyar and some closely related languages which are spoken on the eastern side of the Ural Mts (one of the tribes in the groups was once called the Ugri). Finno-Ugrian is related to another language in Russia called Samoyed [sp?]. Together they are called the Uralic languages. It was commonly believed in the first part of the 20th century that the Uralic languages were related to the Altaic languages (Turkic, Mongolian and a few others). The consensus at present seems to be that they are not related (at least not more closely related to each other than to other groups).