About the project

Talking with foreigners sooner or later the question will come: which group of the European languages does the Hungarian language belong to. The general opinion among foreigners is that though the sounding of the Hungarian language seems to be quite unique, it shows the characteristics of one of the surrounding Slavonic languages. The well informed, referring to their readings, sometimes mentions that of today’s languages probably Turkish is its closest relative. They are very much surprised when we tell them that the Finns and the Esthonians are our closest relatives as far as our linguistic status goes. They are astonished so much, because public opinion holds that, since Finland is a Scandinavian country, linguistically

they are surely related to the Swiss and the Danish. 

Having accepted this new piece of information they usually make the statement: then you surely understand one another very easily, as Spanish, Italian, Portuguese or Norwegian and Danish people do. The correct answer will be even more surprising for the foreigner, since he will get to know that the two languages are not as similar as he has probably experienced it with the Slavonic, some German or neolatin (altogether Indo-European) languages.

If we do not understand each other and we have only very few common words, then what makes the similarity? May be the far- away history, the culture or customs existing so far? We have started doing this project so that we can personally make sure whether these tiny signs- let them be linguistic, cultural, religious or in connection with our everyday life- are really existent and if they are, to what extent are they similar to each other. Can it be proved that they belong to the same big family? 

Let’s first have a look what the theoretical and scientific surveys have conveyed on this field in the last decades.  On this website we will tell and show what can be experienced of all these in today’s reality.

In the Hungarian language there are 660 Finno-Ugric vocabulary words. Of these 319 correspond to Vogul, 287 to Ostyak, 221 to Zyrian, 199 to Votyak, 153 to Cheremiss, 156 to Mordvinian, 212 to Finn, 160 to Estonian, 173 to Lapp. If we say that the basic vocabulary of the Hungarian language consists of 2080 words, that is   2000 stems and 80 simple suffixes and affixes, the Hungarian-Finn correspondences make only 10% of the Hungarian basic vocabulary. This percentage will be even smaller if we only take the basic words from Finn too.

We must take into consideration that the relation between these words can usually be seen only in the written form, in spoken language one must have very quick ears to be able to spot the closely univocal words when concentrating on the meaning. Even if one manages to do that, we cannot be sure that the univocal ness is not accidental.

The situation is different with stress and intonation of the language. If we do not pay attention, just hear the background noise (in the street, in TV etc.), we can feel home in Finland too. The Finns’ English pronunciation is very often the same as the Hungarians’. It was a great help in the everyday use of the project’s work language (English). It is well known that there are many similarities in the grammatical structures, but the very close way of intonation of the two languages itself refers to their relationship. A common feature in the two languages is that foreigners consider both of them difficult. Of course there are no difficult languages. This opinion is based upon the fact that the grammatical structures and the logic of these neighbouring Indo-European, Finno-Ugrian or Turkish languages are quite different from each other.

 The question of relationship between two languages or two nations is not a new phenomenon.

The theory of relative languages developed in the 18th century, but it had also been previously supposed that the Hungarian and the Finno-Ugrian languages belong to the same family. Already in the 15th century pope Pius II mentioned that a monk from Verona had met some men by the river Don who spoke a language similar to Hungarian. Hungarian historians first mention the possible relationship between the Obi-Ugrians and the Hungarians in the 16th century. In the 17th century a Swiss scholar also stated that the Finn and the Hungarian languages are very similar. Martin Vogel, German scholar discovered the parallels of Finn and Hungarian grammatical structures. These suppositions furnished the basis for the theory of Finn-Hungarian linguistic affinity.

The interest towards the Finno-Ugrian relationship grew more intensive in the 1840s. Antal Reguly, language scholar also examined the Finno-Ugrian languages. Pal Hunfalvy and József Budenz processed his notes on the Voguls and Ostyaks. Having been convinced about the relationship between the Finn and the Hungarian language, they laid the foundation of the Hungarian Finno-Ugristics.

The theory soon had its critics and in 1870 the Ugor-Turkish war broke out. The distinguished scholars of the age lined up on both sides and the dispute finished with the victory of Finno-Ugrian relationship. Before World War II the Finns considered not only the Hungarian language their relatives but also the Hungarian nation. Since the end of War however- as the result of the latest researches  - the genetic relationship has not been mentioned on either sides, only the linguistic relationship is underlined.

 Two languages- one family. One or more lands of origin?

 Logically if the two nations are relatives in their languages, they must have lived on a common land somewhere. But where? In this question there is no agreement among experts. The common land has changed both its time and place during the last decades.

 Land of origin along the rivers Volga and Kama

 Since literary remains do not help, scholars began to look for those common words in our languages that define the same geographical area. Certain names of trees and expressions of bee keeping belong here, because it is one of the most ancestral occupations. With the help of these words, scholars worked hard to be able to define the place of the original land.

 There were identical elements in deed. Words of bee keeping are of common origin not only in Finno-Ugric, but also in Indo-European languages. So the land of origin must be somewhere where bee keeping has long traditions. At that time it was believed that on Asia’s big territories, in Siberia, Mongolia and Turkestan honey-giving bee had not been known until that time. That is why scholars’ attention turned to the European belt of forests. They believed to have found the area where bee keeping has a long tradition and the ancestors of Finno-Ugrians and Indo-Europeans may have lived together where Volga and Kama flow together. 

  Land of origin around Baltikum- Oka.

 Beside the linguistic records there are also archaeological documents, which show that the two nations had once lived together. Despite of the fact that common linguistic features and the chronology of pollens were also taken into consideration, these researches came to a different conclusion than earlier ones did. On the basis of these theories the Ural land of origin extended from today’s Poland through the Baltikum to river Oka. Scholars tried to verify this basically archaeological theory with linguistic and anthropological arguments as well. It was believed that in Poland place-names of Finno-Ugrian origin were discovered and the human bones, found during the middle Stone Age excavations in Poland, were also brought into connection with the Finno-Ugrian anthropological types. Neither the anthropological nor the linguistic arguments proved to be long lasting.

 The Ural- West- Siberian land of origin

 Later researches brought the following two important developments. On the one hand the pollen maps, that had been a starting point for earlier researches, were put to use, on the other hand only those animal and plant names were taken into consideration which were clearly in connection with a small territory and which could be found in at least one language of each

subgroup. Accordingly the names of animals were completely eliminated and of the plant names only ten tree names were taken into consideration. Of the ten tree names seven originates from the Ural basic language period, so they have Finn-Ugric and Samoyed equivalents. Three of them originate only from the time of Finn-Ugric basic language.     

This research is based on the following tree names: 

1. kowese  ’pruce’
2. s÷kse  ’Siberian pine’
3. nulka ’silver fir’
4. kojwa ’birch-tree’
5. poje ’poplar’
6. paje ’willow’
7. juwe ’Scotch fir’
8. pene ’Scotch fir’
9. naae Scotch fir’
10. sala ’elm-tree’

 Among the above-mentioned trees there are the most characteristic trees of the Siberian fir-woods (1.3.9.). Elm tree refers to the area of Central European leafy forests (10.) The rest of these trees do not help in defining a particular area since they are undemanding plants that grow everywhere. With the help of the pollen maps we can see how the trees’ area of presence changed in the past thousands of years. On this basis the land of origin was supposed to have been in West Siberia.

 The Baltic States and Central Europe

 Beside this, mainly as the result of Finnish scholars’ work, there was another assumption. According to that at a certain time the population of Central and North Europe was formed by Finno- Ugric nations who were either completely assimilated by the Indo –Europeans coming from the North (Denmark, North Germany) and their language, even if not without trace, but disappeared or they were pushed   to the North parts of today’s Baltic states.

 The complexity of the problem is shown by the fact that the research has not stopped until today and again and again new theories are born both on Hungarian and Finnish sides.

 Historical parallels during the last centuries

 After the centuries spent in the supposed but not proved land of origin, the history of the two nations continued very far away from one another and among very different circumstances. We have a good reason to think that among so different conditions there was no chance for further similarities to be born. If we look back on the last centuries of history, we can see in surprise that this is not true. There are more common elements in our history then we would think. Of course the participants are different but there are astonishing parallels between certain processes. This is true for those centuries when the two nations lived in oppression and of these we have a lot on both sides. After the time of living beside one another many thousand years ago, Finland was ruled by the Swedish .In the11-12th century, during the time of holy wars the Swedish’s attention turned to the neighbouring Finnish territories and with the help of

missionary work they were eager to obtain them. That is why in 1150 Eric IX, Swedish ruler and Henric, bishop of Upsala English by birth but working in Sweden, waged a holy war in Finland and established the first local organisation of Christian Church in Turku, along the South coast. The goal of the Swedish, beyond missionary work, was to gain economical advantages and to stabilize their power.

The stabilisation of the Swedish rule roused the Russian to action too. To stop the rival power coming from the North, they waged a battle to Finland from Novgorod. The war ended in 1323. As a result Karjala was divided between the two powers and along the border a line of demarcation was drawn between Novgorod and Sweden. The eastern territories were attached to Sweden.??????

In the following centuries the contention between the Swedish and the Russian renewed again and again. In the reign of the Swedish king, Adolph Gustav II (1611-1632) all the eastern territories of Finland were attached to Sweden and the official language was Swedish. During the reign of czar Nicholas I.(1825-1855) the economic development of the country came to a halt. At this time national consciousness regained strength. Elias Lönnrot put together the first version of the Finns’ national epic poem, Kalevala and first published it in 1835. In 1849 an enlarged version was published. Perceiving the growing sense of identity Nicholas II.(1868-1918) ordered a strong Russianization in Finland and with this the time of oppression began.

The events of the 1905 Russian revolution were gaining ground in Finland as well. A strike developed and influenced by this Nicholas II withdrew all his earlier directions. Parliamental reform established the one chamber national assembly and the 1906 electoral law, based on general and equal rights, gave franchise to women first time in Europe. Czar Nicholas II was deprived of his throne by the March revolution in 1917 all over the Empire. This opened the way for Finland towards independence.

 Following year the new constitution was accepted and Kaarlo Juho Sthalberget, a professor of law at Helsinki University, former chairman of Parliament, was elected the president of the republic (1919-1925).

 When comparing it with Hungarian history, we find the difference that Hungarian national sovereignty was lost many centuries after that the Swedish had colonized the Finnish territories. In Hungary the confused division and defencelessness to alien powers came into being after the disastrous year of 1526. The Swedish had to suffer all these since the 1200s. Later on however the situation of our countries became quite similar. During the 150 years of Turkish oppression the country got so weak that we could not get rid of the Turkish power alone. This situation paved the way for the second Austrian oppression to be able to come. As time was passing it became milder, but the official language of Hungary got to be German. Even in the capital there were more people talking German than Hungarian, very similarly to the Swedish-Finnish parallel.

For both nations the events after World War I brought about the real beak-through to the way of independence. The two nations became republic. We can also see a parallel in the role Russia had taken in forming the history of these two nations in certain periods of history.

For instance there are the years of 1848-1849 or the long centuries when the Finns sometimes had to sacrifice even their lives against the centralizing attempts of the czars coming to the throne one after the other. The historical turning points had different effects on the two nations from a certain point of view. The Finns, in spite of the lot of trials the long lasting oppression and the restrictions of using their national language remained very much homogenous. The number of Swedish inhabitants grew only on the southern territories of the country. According to the signs this fact added considerably that their national epic could be born and survive. The conservation of the Hungarian language, religion and customs have been much more difficult in the last 5000 centuries. As a result there are a lot of words of Turkish, Slavic and German origin in our language. World War II demanded serious sufferings and sacrifices from both nations. The Finns’ legendary resistance in the winter of 1939-40 is still today praiseworthy and must be mentioned as the most glorious time of their history.

The history of the last decades shows different ways of development. Finland could develop within the framework of a stable democracy and welfare already in the 1950s and they served as a model for welfare society.

 After this many-sided survey let’s ask the title question of our common project. Two languages one family?

 The first part of the question can easily be answered if we remember that the people taking part in the project could only understand certain words of the other’s language, because they had previously learnt some basic words of the partner’s language. An everyday Finn or Hungarian however is unable to recognise the relationship between the two languages just on the basis of the parallels of the basic vocabulary. 

 Just as the language differs, people differ too. The Finns are taller and leaner than we are. They are rather blond than brown or black haired and more wordless than we think we are. We could experience that they are more independent and think in a different way about the simple or complex issues of life than we do.