The Coach [antikvár]

Foreign experts conducted the first research into the mysteries of this language, with litde success-Western linguists were unable to unveil the origins of our speech. Perhaps this accounts for the fact that Hungarian happens to be the language which has been compared to other ones the most. More than 200 languages have been matched with ours. It is litde wonder then that numerous ideas have been proposed with regards to the origins of our tongue. Some suggest that we are the descendants of a people with an advanced culture living on a sunken continent. Still others say Gog and Magog were the origins the Hungarians. They even used the vocabulary of the Bible to draw conclusions. Presumably, Hungarian is the most ancient of languages and thus is a predecessor of Hebrew itself. According to other researchers, our people came from the Etruscans and the Scythians; another—widely accepted—opinion ventures that we came from the Sumerians, so Hungarian could have traces of these languages. For a long time, Hungarians — between the i ith and i6th centuries - were referred to as the Huns, so many a theory and description was born about the relation between Hungarians and Huns. It was at the end of the i8th century that the Hungarian language began to be compared to the Finno-Ugric languages. According to the accepted viewpoint of today, Hungarian is classified among the Finno-Ugric languages, even though many linguists question, even challenge, the proposition. Research into the origins of the Hungarian language is still on-going today, with numerous directions taken. Both foreign and national researchers are facing a daunting task, since the logic of our language is inherently different from that of other languages (such as those spoken in Europe). The igth century polyglot John Bowring's statement is true: "The Hungarian language goes far hack. It developed in a very peculiar manner and its structure reaches back to times when most of the European languages now spoken did not even exist. It is a language which developed steadily and firmly in itself.Tt is for this reason that Hungarian is often likened to an island standing in the middle of Europe, surrounded by the Slavic, Germanic and Latin languages, from which it is entirely different. What is certain of the otherwise unknown past from which we have come is that we have brought an utterly valuable heritage with us—our language, which has intrigued and dazzled many. 8