Hungarians are definitely NOT Slavs
Tim Cuprisin
Dave,
The conventional wisdom is that the Pannonian Plain was sparsely
occupied by Slavic tribes when the Magyars rode in from Central Asia
around 896 A.D., the last of a wave of Central Asian tribes, including
the Huns. There's also evidence of previous settlement there by Celts
and other peoples.
Obviously, there was DNA mixing going on and I'll bet that if you trace
things back, a lot of ethnic Hungarians would find Slav ancestors in the
woodpile. The Hungarian surname "Horvath" is a form of "Croat," which
may be what you're referring to.
The ruling Hungarians continued to mix DNA with their Slavic subjects up
until 1918, when the various Slav states finally won independence.
There was also assimilation. Villages that were ethnically Rusyn in the
early 1800s now lie within the borders of modern-day Hungary. The folks
from those locales are clearly Magyar-ized Slavs. There has been a
post-communist rebirth of Rusyn identity in Hungary, but I think you're
talking about small numbers.
But the Hungarians -- or, more accurately, the Magyars -- are
definitely NOT a Slavic people. That's a flat statement with no wiggle
room. Their language is of the Finno-Ugric group, like the Finns and
Estonians. It's unrelated to any Slavic languages or other European
languages.
--tim cuprisin
cupr...@execpc.com
Ron Matviyak
I have to agree with Tim completely - his observations coincide
precisely with the way I understand things have developed. You might
have noticed my tendency to offer comparable events in history. This is
with an eye toward demonstrating that a series of events can not only
happen but has repeated itself in various forms. In this case the
assigning of the "Hun" name to the Magyars is similar to the original
Baltic Prussians being conquered and assimilated by the Germans. The
Magyars also adapted many Slavic words into their language, and perhaps
the "vino" for wine common to so many languages comes from the Romans.
I like the Slovak word "Madyar" instead of "Magyar."
Assimilation of different Slavic tribes into the Hungarian people is
also natural. Most Hungarians do not look as asiatic as we can assume
they were 1,000 years ago. Besides, political correctness and changing
languages for advancement are nothing new. Changing names from Slavic
to Magyar was easy - especially when there were no family names
centuries ago.
Look at teh fun we have in locating villages where we need three or four
languages to read the different documents concerning the village. Then
consider how the spelling of the village name has changed and varied
over time within any one language! Is it any surprise that family names
have changed as well, and that the spellings are inconsistent? Spelling
in Slovak is closely related to pronunciation, I have been told. If
there were so many dialect in the country, of course the spellings of
names would vary. No surprise.
For centuries the Slavs milled about on the eastern edge of Europe, and
early references to the "barbaric" tribes by the Romans leaves it in
doubt as to which were Slavic or Germanic in some cases. This is a very
variable place in history. I found it easy to buy the "Czecho-Slovak"
theory that originally the Czechs and Slovaks were either one or very
closely related tribes. Including the South Slavs in that is not a far
reach for me. Diversion of the languages? Look at the differences that
have developed in English and American in our 200 years of
independence. Look at how our American language has changed since WW I.
I wonder about the Rusyn, and how much is a rebirth of identity and how
much today is a seminal development of a Rusyn culture. I guess I have
a bit of reading to do in that direction.
During the time I was in Estonia ('93) there was no doubt the Estonians
were very proud and happy for their ties with the Finns. They could
watch Finnish TV and understand it, though the reverse is claimed not to
be true. The waters that separate them are only 30 or 50 miles wide.
They recognize Hungarian as being in the same family of languages, but
too remote for ready communication.
Ron
John Matsko
The following was written before I read Ron's message. Some of the
questions have been partially answered by Ron's post.
>Obviously, there was DNA mixing going on and I'll bet that if you trace
>things back, a lot of ethnic Hungarians would find Slav ancestors in the
>woodpile.
To those out their with a hysterical perspective:
Has anyone done a DNA study to determine if there is a genetic link to the
Finns and Estonians? Would a DNA study be specific enough to able to
determine a genetic linkage? Since language can be learned, what theory do
historians or linguists offer that identifies a people as belonging to a
particular ethnic group based on their language? It seems to me that a
small but powerful group could impose their language initially but later
become assimilated into the larger population, which then retains the
language. Is there any evidence of this happening in other areas of the
world?
John
Tim Cuprisin
John Matsko wrote:
> It seems to me that a
> small but powerful group could impose their language initially but later
> become assimilated into the larger population, which then retains the
> language. Is there any evidence of this happening in other areas of the
> world?
John, you raise a mighty important point. Slavs are most accurately
considered a linguistic group. And the ancestry of various Slav
nationalities is the subject of hot debate (and, in the case of
Yugoslavia, war). I don't know of genetic research to find an ethnic
link between Estonians and Finns, although their geographic nearness
makes that more than likely. It seems less likely for the Magyars. The
only confirmed link between them is linguistic, as far as I know.
As for the Slavs, some think that the roots of Croats are Iranian, an
Aryan group, definitely not Slavs. And during World War II, Croat
fascists used this theory to posit that they were Aryans like the Nazi
friends. Others argue that many Serbs are non-Slav Vlachs, who adopted
a Slavic identity when the adopted Serbian Orthodoxy.
Some of this may also be anti-Slavic propaganda. That's what some folks
label the historical theory that the first rulers of Rus' were actually
Vikings, since those poor primitive Slavs couldn't rule themselves and
create a great state like Kievan Rus'.
-tim
Ondrej & Susan Recnik
John Matsko wrote:
> Since language can be learned, what theory do
>historians or linguists offer that identifies a people as belonging to a
>particular ethnic group based on their language? It seems to me that a
>small but powerful group could impose their language initially but later
>become assimilated into the larger population, which then retains the
>language. Is there any evidence of this happening in other areas of the
>world?
Yes, history is full of these linguistic changes. French, Spanish, and
Italian are the result
of conquered peoples learning the language of their conquerors. English is
the result
of a mixing of French and Germanic Anglo-Saxon, a result of the Norman
conquest of
Britain. That is why English has non-phonetic spelling
unlike most other languages which have a lot more phonetic spelling.
*********************
There are significant changes that occur when a conquered people learn the
language of
their conquerors. It is these changes that indicate whether a language is an
original language
of the original people or the bastardized language due to conquest.
*********************
>From the study of linguistic changes one can definitely state that the
Croatians and Serbians
are Slavs. Anyone trying to claim other origins for these people is simply
indulging in
anti-Slav propaganda.
Also one can state that the Slovaks and Slovenes are a related people which
at one time
were one tribe that was broken up by the Magyar invasion.
Oh, and Old Prussian was a Slavic language which was wiped out by the
Germans as is the
Sorbian language which was almost totally wiped out in East Germany.
Ondrej
Ron Matviyak
I must disagree on several points.
Ondrej & Susan Recnik wrote:
>
> Yes, history is full of these linguistic changes. French, Spanish, and
> Italian are the result
> of conquered peoples learning the language of their conquerors.
It is generally recognized that these are the Romance languages, from
the Roman... but Italian is looked upon as the direct decendant. I
wonder about Portugese, it is so neglected in discussion.
English is
> the result of a mixing of French and Germanic Anglo-Saxon, a result of the Norman
> conquest of Britain. That is why English has non-phonetic spelling
> unlike most other languages which have a lot more phonetic spelling.
> OK, but don't forget Old English contributions - leftovers from before 1066 and all that.
> *********************
> There are significant changes that occur when a conquered people learn the
> language of their conquerors. It is these changes that indicate whether a language is an original language of the original people or the bastardized language due to conquest.
HOW DO YOU EXPLAIN THE SLOVAKS NOT LEARNING HUNGARIAN IN 900 YEARS OF
DOMINATION? OR THE MAGYARIZED SLOVAKS NOT CHANGING THEIR HUNGARIAN?
WHERE ARE THE "significant changes that occur"??
> *********************
>
> >From the study of linguistic changes one can definitely state that the
> Croatians and Serbians are Slavs. Anyone trying to claim other origins for these people is simply indulging in anti-Slav propaganda.
> WHAT OF THE THEORY THAT THE CROATS ARE FROM IRAN?
> Also one can state that the Slovaks and Slovenes are a related people which
> at one time were one tribe that was broken up by the Magyar invasion.
SEEMS LIKELY BUT UNPROVABLE EXCEPT BY EMPTY DIALECTICAL ARGUMENT.
>
> Oh, and Old Prussian was a Slavic language which was wiped out by the
> Germans as is the Sorbian language which was almost totally wiped out in East Germany.
>WATCH OUT FOR ANGRY LATVIANS AND LITHUANIANS! YOU JUST STOLE THEIR THIRD TRIBE AND GAVE THEM (THE PRUSSIANS) TO THE SLAVS!! EVERYTHING I HAVE READ PLACES THE ORIGINAL PRUSSIANS AS BALTS, AND THE THREE BALTIC PEOPLES AND LANGUAGES (PRUSSIAN, WHICH IS A DEAD LANGUAGE) AND LATVIAN AND LITHUANIAN as only very distantly related to the Slavic languages, "demonstrating" a split of the Slavs and the Balts a very, very long time ago. Incidently, the Lithuanians claim the oldest or one of the oldest original languages in Europe. They also claim the geographic center of Europe, 25 km north of Vilnius. Been there, done that. Never visited the geographic center of Europe in Slovakia, though. Deprived life I lead. Maybe I'll catch one or two more in my lifetime! The germans are 'proud' of their Sorbs in eastern Germany, who are teaching their language in the local schools and after hours trying to keep the traditions alive. About like the indians in the US.
> Ondrej
Tim Cuprisin
Ron Matviyak wrote:
> HOW DO YOU EXPLAIN THE SLOVAKS NOT LEARNING HUNGARIAN IN 900 YEARS OF
> DOMINATION? OR THE MAGYARIZED SLOVAKS NOT CHANGING THEIR HUNGARIAN?
> WHERE ARE THE "significant changes that occur"??
The survival of a Hungarian ethnic minority in Slovakia or a Slovak
minority in Hungary isn't surprising. For the most part, both surviving
groups live in concentrations near the largest contiguous group of their
ethnic compatriots. They are not intermingled in the general population.
You don't find large concentrations of people identifying themselves as
Hungarians living on the Polish border.
As for the non-Magyar subjects of the 900-year Magyar occupation, the
Slav peasants was treated much like the Magyar peasants.... for much of
the occupation, they weren't considered important enough to convert.
Their role in the state was to provide labor, and taxes and bodies to
fight in wars. The lack of national identity in the pre-1848 period
helped preserve the cohesiveness of the subject Slavs.
That, of course, doesn't count the attempts in the 19th Century to merge
the Slavs into the Magyar state. However intense they may have been, it
didn't last long enough to destroy Slav identity.
But it goes both ways.
If you're from Slovakia and dig deeply enough, you're likely to find
Magyar surnames among Slovak relatives without a drop of Magyar
identity. It's called assimilation and happens in every intermarriage.
In historical terms, it happens on a grand scale. The Bosnian Muslims
are an easily traceable example of it. The Bosnians who lost their
Slavic identity over generations left for Turkey when the Turks left
Bosnia. The Muslims who maintained their Slavic identity remained. There
are even Bosnian Muslims with Turkish ancestry who now consider
themselves Slavs.
The peoples of Central Europe don't live in ethnic islands. There are no
black or white pedigrees. Much of identity depends on which ethnic group
an individual, or a family -- or even a village, over the course of
generations -- identifies with.
--Tim Cuprisin
cupr...@execpc.com
Ron Matviyak
Tim, thanks for the answer. I agree as far as you go, and you put it
together well. But there are two questions that aren't touched on: How
were the French and Spanish, Portugese and the Romanian languages so
heavily influenced by the Romans, and the SLovak language not by the
Hungarians? The Romans were there as conquoring armies, relatively
isolated in their castiles and Limes. The Hungarians might have been
isolated as the 'nobility' but there were also the resident Hungarian
peasants.
Some additional comments are sprinkled in your text:
Tim Cuprisin wrote:
>
> Ron Matviyak wrote:
> > HOW DO YOU EXPLAIN THE SLOVAKS NOT LEARNING HUNGARIAN IN 900 YEARS OF
> > DOMINATION? OR THE MAGYARIZED SLOVAKS NOT CHANGING THEIR HUNGARIAN?
> > WHERE ARE THE "significant changes that occur"??
>
> The survival of a Hungarian ethnic minority in Slovakia or a Slovak
> minority in Hungary isn't surprising. For the most part, both surviving
> groups live in concentrations near the largest contiguous group of their
> ethnic compatriots. They are not intermingled in the general population.
> You don't find large concentrations of people identifying themselves as
> Hungarians living on the Polish border.
BUT the borders with the Rumanians and the Yugoslavs had heavy
concentrations. One traveller last century reported "encountering seven
adjacent villages with seven different nationalities" showing what a
polyglot country hungary was.
>
> As for the non-Magyar subjects of the 900-year Magyar occupation, the
> Slav peasants was treated much like the Magyar peasants.... for much of
> the occupation, they weren't considered important enough to convert.
> Their role in the state was to provide labor, and taxes and bodies to
> fight in wars. The lack of national identity in the pre-1848 period
> helped preserve the cohesiveness of the subject Slavs.
>
> That, of course, doesn't count the attempts in the 19th Century to merge
> the Slavs into the Magyar state. However intense they may have been, it
> didn't last long enough to destroy Slav identity.
>
THE pressures to absorb a minority often seem to spur a reaction to
preserve the old culture of the minority.
> But it goes both ways.
>
> If you're from Slovakia and dig deeply enough, you're likely to find
> Magyar surnames among Slovak relatives without a drop of Magyar
> identity. It's called assimilation and happens in every intermarriage.
> In historical terms, it happens on a grand scale. The Bosnian Muslims
> are an easily traceable example of it. The Bosnians who lost their
> Slavic identity over generations left for Turkey when the Turks left
> Bosnia. The Muslims who maintained their Slavic identity remained. There
> are even Bosnian Muslims with Turkish ancestry who now consider
> themselves Slavs.
>
FULLY and heartily agree. It was also fascinating to travel through
Turkey and see the resulting variety of Turks!
> The peoples of Central Europe don't live in ethnic islands.
THIS is a shaky statement, I think. Plenty of ethnic islands out there,
even with several ethnic cleansings in the past.
>There are no
> black or white pedigrees. Much of identity depends on which ethnic group
> an individual, or a family -- or even a village, over the course of
> generations -- identifies with.
QUESTION: HAVE you noticed how some "half-breeds" to use the most
inflametory term - have you noticed how occasionally some of them will
go to an extreme in identifying with one side of their ethnicity, and
be hostile to the other side? I have seen this in some Europeans and
in some indians. I write it off to the same mentality that accompanies
many people in border regions who passionatly hate the neighbors across
the border. At the same time the people in the "heartland' of a country
do not have the passion in their dislike of the foreigners.
Enough for now..
Ron
> --Tim Cuprisin
> cupr...@execpc.com
Curt Bochanyin
>Tim, thanks for the answer. I agree as far as you go, and you put it
>together well. But there are two questions that aren't touched on: How
>were the French and Spanish, Portugese and the Romanian languages so
>heavily influenced by the Romans, and the SLovak language not by the
>Hungarians? The Romans were there as conquoring armies, relatively
>isolated in their castiles and Limes. The Hungarians might have been
>isolated as the 'nobility' but there were also the resident Hungarian
>peasants.
>
While the Romans had powerful conquering armies, they were not at all
isolated from local populations. They interacted and intermarried. Large
local populations were absorbed as Roman citizens. (Remember St. Paul) The
Latin language of the Romans was taken up by the newcomers, who after
several generations, accepted it as their own language. The Romance
languages, French, Italian, Spanish, Romanian, etc. were not preexisting
languages. After the decline of the Roman empire, local areas each
developed dialectical variations of Latin due to lack of communication and
absorption of other small local languages. These variations are the modern
Romance languages.
CB
Simon
Ondrej & Susan Recnik wrote in message
<1998020307...@lightning.mgl.ca>...
>John Matsko wrote:
>
>> Since language can be learned, what theory do
>>historians or linguists offer that identifies a people as belonging to a
>>particular ethnic group based on their language? It seems to me that a
>>small but powerful group could impose their language initially but later
>>become assimilated into the larger population, which then retains the
>>language. Is there any evidence of this happening in other areas of the
>>world?
>
>Yes, history is full of these linguistic changes. French, Spanish, and
>Italian are the result
>of conquered peoples learning the language of their conquerors.
English is
>the result
>of a mixing of French and Germanic Anglo-Saxon, a result of the Norman
>conquest of
>Britain.
I think that may be an over simplification, English owes as much to Latin as
Saxony and in fact carrys very little French appart from direct form.
That is why English has non-phonetic spelling
>unlike most other languages which have a lot more phonetic spelling.
>
Well there are many other reasons, a series of illiterate monarchs did not
help, massive regional diferences in Language another, Welsh and Gaelic had
some influence but listening to Americans try to get themselves round
Worcester is still a joy.
>*********************
>There are significant changes that occur when a conquered people learn the
>language of
>their conquerors. It is these changes that indicate whether a language is
an
>original language
>of the original people or the bastardized language due to conquest.
>*********************
>
Like American English?
>>From the study of linguistic changes one can definitely state that the
>Croatians and Serbians
>are Slavs. Anyone trying to claim other origins for these people is simply
>indulging in
>anti-Slav propaganda.
>
>Also one can state that the Slovaks and Slovenes are a related people which
>at one time
>were one tribe that was broken up by the Magyar invasion.
>
>Oh, and Old Prussian was a Slavic language which was wiped out by the
>Germans as is the
>Sorbian language which was almost totally wiped out in East Germany.
>
I thought Prussian was a teutonic language, is it not?
>
>Ondrej
>
Tim Cuprisin
Ron Matviyak wrote:
>
> Tim, thanks for the answer. I agree as far as you go, and you put it
> together well. But there are two questions that aren't touched on: How
> were the French and Spanish, Portugese and the Romanian languages so
> heavily influenced by the Romans, and the SLovak language not by the
> Hungarians? The Romans were there as conquoring armies, relatively
> isolated in their castiles and Limes. The Hungarians might have been
> isolated as the 'nobility' but there were also the resident Hungarian
> peasants.
In Marxist historical terms the issue was strictly class. Ethnicity
didn't matter. That exclusion of ethnic identity is, of course, is
ridiculous.
But I would argue that class shouldn't be thrown out entirely. The
oppression of the Magyar serfs by their Magyar landlords was not any
lighter than that of the Slavic serfs.
As for the Romans, it's not an area that I'm as schooled in. But I think
the linquistic similarities predate the Roman empire. I think (correct
me if I'm wrong) that the Latin people were at least linguistically
related before Rome.
The Magyar culture and worldview is different from the Slavic culture
and worldview, which helped preserve Slavic identity. It's harder for
Rusyns to stay separate from Slovaks or Ukrainians (or Poles, if you're
talking about Lemkos) because the adjacent Slavic culture is only
relatively different from the Rusyn model. They're all Slavs, and thus,
have more in common with their Slavic brothers than they have that
separates them. Thus, the differences are harder to maintain.
> BUT the borders with the Rumanians and the Yugoslavs had heavy
> concentrations. One traveller last century reported "encountering seven
> adjacent villages with seven different nationalities" showing what a
> polyglot country hungary was.
These were relatively new (maybe a century or so, in the 1800s) colonies
brought in to resettle areas of former Turkish occupation. Some of those
ethnic enclaves have been maintained (the Slovaks and Rusyns of
Serb-controlled Vojvodina) for political reasons in Tito's Yugoslavia.
> > The peoples of Central Europe don't live in ethnic islands.
>
> THIS is a shaky statement, I think. Plenty of ethnic islands out there,
> even with several ethnic cleansings in the past.
You misunderstand my point. Slovakia is not an ethnic Slovak state. It's
not a contiguous unit. It's full of small ethnic pockets. Add Magyars,
Roma, Rusyns to the mix and Slovakia is as polyglot a state as the old
Czechoslovakia is. Take the easily definable Eastern Slovak dialect and
you can debate whether there is a "Slovak" nationality.
Go north to Poland. There's now an accepted Polish identity centering on
the Warsaw dialect of Polish. But on Chicago's Southwest Side, where I
grew up, the Polish immigrants were mostly Gorali, from the border
region just north of Slovakia. Their dialect was close to Slovak and
easily understandable to Slovaks and Rusyns. I remember during the 1989
Polish elections, I reported for the Milwaukee Journal on the voting by
Polish emigres in Chicago. A Chicago Solidarity activist told me of how
the old Chicago Poles were corrected his Polish, because it wasn't the
Gorali dialect they knew as Polish.
What is a Pole? What is a Slovak? What is a Rusyn? We have many more
questions than answers.
--tim cuprisin
cupr...@execpc.com
Martin Votruba
> But I would argue that class shouldn't be thrown out entirely. The
> oppression of the Magyar serfs by their Magyar landlords was not any
> lighter than that of the Slavic serfs.
This "equal oppression" is indeed often disregarded by some ethnic
activists in Central Europe today. However, a similar "equality in
oppression" didn't prevent the disappearance of a large part of the
multitude of vernaculars and cultures which used to exist on the territory
of what's France, Britain, etc., in Western Europe today.
The crucial factor in the Austrian Empire (incl. the Kingdom of
Hungary) was the language of administration. In contrast to Western
Europe, it remained Latin through the end of the 18th century and was only
gradually replaced by German and Hungarian in the following decades. E.g.,
the Kingdom's Diet did all its business in Latin and the "high schools"
and universities taught all the subjects only in Latin until about 150+
years ago.
Latin was nobody's mother-tongue. Everyone who wanted to advance
socially had to learn it as a "foreign" language, including the Hungarian
speakers (who, incidentally, were one of the Kingdom's minorities -- no
ethnic group had a majority there).
This suppressed the significance of the educated and ruling
classes' native linguistic skills in the Kingdom and preserved the
languages of the farming communities through the explosion of the ethnic
issue in the last century ("the national awakening"). By that time, most
of the non-French, non-Anglo-Saxon, etc., vernaculars or cultures were not
in a position to be "awakened" in Western Europe.
In other words, the farmers/serfs in the Austrian Empire were
kicked around for all kinds of reasons, but until ca. 1790-1840 it never
occurred to the authorities to teach or force-feed them the language of
any of the other ethnic groups. Until then, literacy meant reading,
writing and speaking Latin (to which writing in one's own vernacular was
gradually added after the Reformation as a matter of convenience).
Martin
Ondrej & Susan Recnik
>The survival of a Hungarian ethnic minority in Slovakia or a Slovak
>minority in Hungary isn't surprising. For the most part, both surviving
>groups live in concentrations near the largest contiguous group of their
>ethnic compatriots. They are not intermingled in the general population.
>You don't find large concentrations of people identifying themselves as
>Hungarians living on the Polish border.
>
I beg to differ.
Thousands of Slovaks survive in Yugoslavia, they are separated from Slovakia
by Hungary, they could have easily assimilated to Serbian but have not done so.
It is not proximity that counts, it is the language and the heritage of
preserving it
that is important to these Slovaks.
>As for the non-Magyar subjects of the 900-year Magyar occupation, the
>Slav peasants was treated much like the Magyar peasants.... for much of
>the occupation, they weren't considered important enough to convert.
>Their role in the state was to provide labor, and taxes and bodies to
>fight in wars. The lack of national identity in the pre-1848 period
>helped preserve the cohesiveness of the subject Slavs.
There was assimilation all along especially in what is today's Hungary.
The assimilation was mitigated by the fact that the Hungarians themselves
were largely controlled by the Austrians who tried to mix the nationalities
and preserve them. It was easier to rule when you could pit one nationality
against another. Like the British did in India.
>That, of course, doesn't count the attempts in the 19th Century to merge
>the Slavs into the Magyar state. However intense they may have been, it
>didn't last long enough to destroy Slav identity.
It destroyed the Slovaks in Hungary.
>But it goes both ways.
>
>If you're from Slovakia and dig deeply enough, you're likely to find
>Magyar surnames among Slovak relatives without a drop of Magyar
>identity. It's called assimilation and happens in every intermarriage.
>In historical terms, it happens on a grand scale. The Bosnian Muslims
>are an easily traceable example of it. The Bosnians who lost their
>Slavic identity over generations left for Turkey when the Turks left
>Bosnia. The Muslims who maintained their Slavic identity remained. There
>are even Bosnian Muslims with Turkish ancestry who now consider
>themselves Slavs.
It is true that assimilation happens naturally. But we must remember
that many Slovaks were forcefully assimilated. They were forced to
use Hungarian names even if they didn't speak Hungarian. And
forced to learn Hungarian.
Ondrej
Ondrej & Susan Recnik
>English is
>>the result
>>of a mixing of French and Germanic Anglo-Saxon, a result of the Norman
>>conquest of
>>Britain.
>
>I think that may be an over simplification, English owes as much to Latin as
>Saxony and in fact carrys very little French appart from direct form.
English is half French as a result of the Norman conquest.
The Normans were a ruling class in England who spoke only French.
All the peasants spoke Anglo-Saxon.
Over several centuries the two languages merged into the English of today.
There are thousands of examples of this mingling of the French and Anglo-Saxon
Of course French is derived from Latin, but the English of today was created
due to conquest and rule of the Normans and not as a conscious decision of
Anglo-Saxons to use Latin words.
>That is why English has non-phonetic spelling
>>unlike most other languages which have a lot more phonetic spelling.
>>
>Well there are many other reasons, a series of illiterate monarchs did not
>help, massive regional diferences in Language another, Welsh and Gaelic had
>some influence but listening to Americans try to get themselves round
>Worcester is still a joy.
I agree, there were many other factors that influenced spelling,
including American attempts to simplify the spelling. I wonder why the Americans
stopped with only a few revisions?
Ondrej
Ondrej & Susan Recnik
>> Yes, history is full of these linguistic changes. French, Spanish, and
>> Italian are the result
>> of conquered peoples learning the language of their conquerors.
>the Roman... but Italian is looked upon as the direct decendant. I
>wonder about Portugese, it is so neglected in discussion.
No, Italian is not a direct descendant, Italy was inhabited by different
peoples before the
Latins conquered them. To this day there are still many Italian linguistic
groups, Italian
is the official language, the lingua franca of Italy, but it is not spoken
every day by all
Italians.
Portugese? Yes it was neglected. It is just like Spanish which was created
as a result of
Roman conquest.
>English is
>> the result of a mixing of French and Germanic Anglo-Saxon, a result of
the Norman
>> conquest of Britain. That is why English has non-phonetic spelling
>> unlike most other languages which have a lot more phonetic spelling.
>> OK, but don't forget Old English contributions - leftovers from before
1066 and all that.
Yes of course English is a mix of mostly French and Anglo-Saxon and some
words from other
groups on the island. But the language was not called English before 1066,
it came into existance
only several centuries later.
>> There are significant changes that occur when a conquered people learn the
>> language of their conquerors. It is these changes that indicate whether a
language is an original language of the original people or the bastardized
language due to conquest.
>HOW DO YOU EXPLAIN THE SLOVAKS NOT LEARNING HUNGARIAN IN 900 YEARS OF
>DOMINATION? OR THE MAGYARIZED SLOVAKS NOT CHANGING THEIR HUNGARIAN?
>WHERE ARE THE "significant changes that occur"??
Some groups are more stubborn about keeping their langauge, Slovaks and
Hungarians are stubborn
peoples who have maintained their languages, just like many others
throughout the world, like the
Basques, Bretons, etc. etc.
I do not know the Hungarian language so I do not know if it has changed
significantly as a result of assimilating
Slavs. If Hungarian still retains all its cases (declensions) then it hasn't
changed if it doesn't then it has changed.
Bulgarian is an example of this type of significant change due to the mixing
of two groups. The Bulgars
assimilated to the Slavic language but in the process eliminated most of the
Slavic cases (declensions).
> WHAT OF THE THEORY THAT THE CROATS ARE FROM IRAN?
This is ridiculous, nothing could be further from the truth. Just Nazi
(Ustashi) propaganda.
Just like Hitler denied being Jewish, so some Croats tried to deny being
Slavic. Mental problems.
>WATCH OUT FOR ANGRY LATVIANS AND LITHUANIANS! YOU JUST STOLE THEIR THIRD
TRIBE AND GAVE >THEM (THE PRUSSIANS) TO THE SLAVS!! EVERYTHING I HAVE READ
PLACES THE ORIGINAL PRUSSIANS AS >BALTS, AND THE THREE BALTIC PEOPLES AND
LANGUAGES (PRUSSIAN, WHICH IS A DEAD LANGUAGE) AND >LATVIAN AND LITHUANIAN
as only very distantly related to the Slavic languages, "demonstrating" a
split of the >Slavs and the Balts a very, very long time ago.
Well people used to write that the Czechs were Germans and that Slovaks were
Hungarians. Anything
was better then admitting that they were Slavs. Made elimination of Slavs
easier.
Whether the Balts (Lithuanians and Latvians) and the Slavs were related in
history is debatable, could be
just a way of trying to make Slavs a subgroup of the Balts, not as a
distinct group on their own.
>Incidently, the Lithuanians claim the oldest or one of the oldest original
languages in Europe
Because they have so many Slavic words in their vocabulary??
>The germans are 'proud' of their Sorbs in eastern Germany, who are teaching
their language in the local schools and after >hours trying to keep the
traditions alive. About like the indians in the US.
Exactly, after stealing the land and exterminating or assimilating almost
all the native population
both countries are now 'proud' of the last few survivors of their country's
past brutality.
Ondrej
Simon
Ondrej & Susan Recnik <ore...@mgl.ca> wrote in article
<1998020407...@lightning.mgl.ca>...
: >English is
: >>the result
: >>of a mixing of French and Germanic Anglo-Saxon, a result of the Norman
: >>conquest of
: >>Britain.
: >
: >I think that may be an over simplification, English owes as much to
Latin as
: >Saxony and in fact carrys very little French apart from direct form.
:
: English is half French as a result of the Norman conquest.
: The Normans were a ruling class in England who spoke only French.
In much the same way as most of the ruling class in Tsarist Russia chose to
speak French. English suffers very little from french influence apart from
proximity, the only real signs now are place names, as these are often the
names of the local Norman Lord, such as Woodham Ferrers, William de Ferrer
being the local lord.
: All the peasants spoke Anglo-Saxon.
: Over several centuries the two languages merged into the English of
today.
So the Romans never came to the British Isles and gave us places such as
Colchester, Chester, Bath, London etc etc etc. 1066 was insignificant. In
much the same way as people in Tyne and Wear do not speak Japanese simply
because some of the major employers are Japanese.
You also Ignore the impact of Norse and other Scandinavian tribes on
English, try listening to slow Norwegian being spoken, the amount you
understand as an English speaker is amazing.
The language of the Church in the BI was of course Latin for many many
centuries.
:
: There are thousands of examples of this mingling of the French and
Anglo-Saxon
A few please?
: Of course French is derived from Latin, but the English of today was
created
: due to conquest and rule of the Normans and not as a conscious decision
of
: Anglo-Saxons to use Latin words.
See comments above.
:
: >That is why English has non-phonetic spelling
: >>unlike most other languages which have a lot more phonetic spelling.
: >>
: >Well there are many other reasons, a series of illiterate monarchs did
not
: >help, massive regional differences in Language another, Welsh and
Gaelic had
: >some influence but listening to Americans try to get themselves round
: >Worcester is still a joy.
:
: I agree, there were many other factors that influenced spelling,
: including American attempts to simplify the spelling. I wonder why the
Americans
: stopped with only a few revisions?
Have you read I believe it was Mark Twains proposals on the matter?
:
: Ondrej
:
:
Ron Matviyak
First off, I didn't mean to shout. Just tried to clearly separate my
ideas from yours. Will be using the first word in a reply capitalized
in the future to separate a response from an original idea.
Oh? You surprised me here. When I thought a second time of you
claiming the Prussians as Slavs, I figured you listed the Prussians in
place of the Baltic Slavs - the Polabians, the Pomeranians, and the
Sorbs or Kashubians. They do seem to fall into the catagory of
overwhelmed and assimilated peoples. Since you repeat your argument
that the Prussians were Slavs, I simply have to disagree. They are fine
people, but there are one or two tribes of fine people out there who are
not Slavs.
Incidently, Simon, why do you imply the English is superior to the
American? Don't forget that the real reason the sun never set on the
British Empire is because God did not trust the Brits in the dark! ;>
Ron
Ondrej & Susan Recnik wrote:
> Ron wrote:
> >WATCH OUT FOR ANGRY LATVIANS AND LITHUANIANS! YOU JUST STOLE THEIR THIRD
> TRIBE AND GAVE >THEM (THE PRUSSIANS) TO THE SLAVS!! EVERYTHING I HAVE READ
> PLACES THE ORIGINAL PRUSSIANS AS >BALTS, AND THE THREE BALTIC PEOPLES AND
> LANGUAGES (PRUSSIAN, WHICH IS A DEAD LANGUAGE) AND >LATVIAN AND LITHUANIAN
> as only very distantly related to the Slavic languages, "demonstrating" a
> split of the >Slavs and the Balts a very, very long time ago.
>
> Well people used to write that the Czechs were Germans and that Slovaks were
> Hungarians. Anything
> was better then admitting that they were Slavs. Made elimination of Slavs
> easier.
> Whether the Balts (Lithuanians and Latvians) and the Slavs were related in
> history is debatable, could be
IT IS ALL debatable, no?
> just a way of trying to make Slavs a subgroup of the Balts, not as a
> distinct group on their own.
>
> >Incidently, the Lithuanians claim the oldest or one of the oldest original
> languages in Europe
>
> Because they have so many Slavic words in their vocabulary??
>
> >The germans are 'proud' of their Sorbs in eastern Germany, who are teaching
> their language in the local schools and after >hours trying to keep the
> traditions alive. About like the indians in the US.
>
> Exactly, after stealing the land and exterminating or assimilating almost
> all the native population
> both countries are now 'proud' of the last few survivors of their country's
> past brutality.
YOU GOT my meaning precisely.
>
> Ondrej
Simon
Ron Matviyak <am...@alaska.net> wrote in article
<34D9DE...@alaska.net>...
:
:
: Incidently, Simon, why do you imply the English is superior to the
: American? Don't forget that the real reason the sun never set on the
: British Empire is because God did not trust the Brits in the dark! ;>
:
: Ron
:
I made no such implication, however, I do imply that American and English
are separate languages. In the same way that Australian is different or
perhaps Czech is different to Slovak and German different to Swabish.
As for the British Empire and trusting Brits, well if god existed he would
indeed be a wise man.
:
:
Ondrej & Susan Recnik
>As for the Romans, it's not an area that I'm as schooled in. But I think
>the linquistic similarities predate the Roman empire. I think (correct
>me if I'm wrong) that the Latin people were at least linguistically
>related before Rome.
No, the Latins, were not linguistically related, not like the Slavs.
One proof of this is the fact that declensions do not survive in
any Romance languages. Latin had declensions, but when the
conquered people learned the language they simplified it and
threw out the difficult declensions (cases).
The Slavic languages all have declensions, with the exception of the Bulgars
who have dropped most of them. The language was simplified by the
conquering Bulgars.
>The Magyar culture and worldview is different from the Slavic culture
>and worldview, which helped preserve Slavic identity. It's harder for
>Rusyns to stay separate from Slovaks or Ukrainians (or Poles, if you're
>talking about Lemkos) because the adjacent Slavic culture is only
>relatively different from the Rusyn model. They're all Slavs, and thus,
>have more in common with their Slavic brothers than they have that
>separates them. Thus, the differences are harder to maintain.
Not so. Slovaks in Yugoslavia could easily switch to Serbian. They all know
how to speak it. Serbian is easy to learn for the Slovaks, but they have not
dropped their language or culture. Assimilation has more to do with "official
languages" and forcing languages on kids in school. The Rusyns would have
survived if they were allowed to have their own schools, etc.
>These were relatively new (maybe a century or so, in the 1800s) colonies
>brought in to resettle areas of former Turkish occupation.
More then 250 years, first settlement 1745.
> Some of those
>ethnic enclaves have been maintained (the Slovaks and Rusyns of
>Serb-controlled Vojvodina) for political reasons in Tito's Yugoslavia.
No, not for political reasons. It was out of the respect for other
minorities which the Serbs have always shown.
Let us not forget that they were the ones who initiated the idea of all
Slavs throwing off the yoke of their
oppressors and they were the first to militarily defeat both the
Austro-Hungarians AND the Turks and
inspired other Slavs to rebellion. It was the attempt to kill the idea of
Slavic independence that started
World War I. The Turks and Austro-Hungars tried to choke the Slavs and lost!!
Ondrej