Hunnic language

Infobox Language
name=Hunnic
familycolor=Altaic
region=from China into Europe
extinct=probably shortly after 453 CE
fam1=Altaic
fam2=Turkic
fam3=Oghur

The Hunnic language is an extinct language of the Huns. The records for this language are sparse.

Classification

Hunnic has been considered as related to the extinct Bulgar and to present-day Chuvash in various schemes of genetic relationship. Today these languages are classified, alongside with Khazar and Turkic Avar, as members of the Oghuric branch of the Turkic language family.

The suggestion that Hunnic was a Turkic language arises from the identification of Hunnic names and other Hunnic lexical items as Turkic, some attested in the surviving literary records, [Notably as documented in the works of Maenchen-Helfen (1973), Pritsak (1982), Kemal (2002).] some recorded on artifacts recovered by archaeologists. [The decipherment of the inscription on the Khan Diggiz plate by Mukhamadiev (1995) reveals the language to be West Hunnic.]

The conclusion that Hunnic belongs to the Oghuric branch of Turkic arises from the reasoning that the known vocabulary shows the language to belong to the "r-" and "l-"type, as summarized by Johanson: "It is assumed that the Huns also were speakers of an "r-" and "l-"type Turkic language and that their migration was responsible for the appearance of this language in the West."

The "r-" and "l-" type language ("Lir"-Turkic) is now documented only by Chuvash, the only subsisting member of the Oghuric branch of Turkic. The rest of the Turkic languages (Common Turkic) are of the "z-" and "š-" type (also referred to as "Shaz"-Turkic). [Johanson (1998); cf. Johanson (2000, 2007) and the articles pertaining to the subject in Johanson & Csató (ed., 1998).]

Notes

Bibliography

* Clark, Larry. 1998. "Chuvash." In: Johanson & Csató, pp. 434-452.
* Gmyrya, L. 1995. "Hun country at the Caspian Gate: Caspian Dagestan during the epoch of the Great Movement of Peoples". Makhachkala: Dagestan Publishing.
* Golden, Peter B. 1998. "The Turkic peoples: A historical sketch." In: Johanson & Csató, pp. 16-29.
* Heather, Peter. 1995. "The Huns and the End of the Roman Empire in Western Europe." "English Historical Review" 110.4-41.
* Johanson, Lars & Éva Agnes Csató (ed.). 1998. "The Turkic languages". London: Routledge.
* Johanson, Lars. 1998. "The history of Turkic." In: Johanson & Csató, pp. 81-125. [http://www.turkiclanguages.com/www/classification.html]
* Johanson, Lars. 1998. "Turkic languages." In: "Encyclopaedia Britannica". CD 98. Encyclopaedia Britannica Online, 5 sept. 2007. [http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-80003/Turkic-languages]
* Johanson, Lars. 2000. "Linguistic convergence in the Volga area." In: Gilbers, Dicky, Nerbonne, John & Jos Schaeken (ed.). "Languages in contact". Amsterdam & Atlanta: Rodopi. (Studies in Slavic and General linguistics 28.), pp. 165-178. [http://www3.germanistik.uni-halle.de/antos/dgfs98/abstracts/johanson.htm]
* Johanson, Lars. 2007. Chuvash. "Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics". Oxford: Elsevier.
*Kemal, Cemal. 2002. "The Origins of the Huns: A new view on the eastern heritage of the Hun tribes." (Text edited from conversations with Kemal Cemal, Turkey, 1 November 2002.) In: Features for Europe: Barbarian Europe. Kessler Associates. "The History Files". [http://www.historyfiles.co.uk/FeaturesEurope/BarbarianHuns.htm]
*Krueger, John. 1961. "Chuvash Manual". Bloomington: Indiana University Publications. 
*Maenchen-Helfen, Otto J. 1973. "The world of the Huns: Studies in their history and culture". Berkeley: University of California Press. [http://www.kroraina.com/huns/mh/]
*Mukhamadiev, Azgar G. 1995. "The inscription on the plate of Khan Diggiz." In: In: "Problems of the lingo-ethno-history of the Tatar people". Kazan: Tatarskoe knizhnoe izd-vo, pp. 36-83. (ISBN 5-201-08300, in Russian). Translated from the Russian into English, www.turkicworld.org. [http://s155239215.onlinehome.us/turkic/32WritingHuns/Diggiz3En.htm]
*Pritsak, Omeljan. 1982. "The Hunnic Language of the Attila Clan." "Havard Ukrainian Studies", vol. 6, pp. 428-476.
*Róna-Tas, András. 1998. "The reconstruction of Proto-Turkic and the genetic question." In: Johanson & Csató, pp. 67-80.
*Schönig, Claus. 1997-1998. "A new attempt to classify the Turkic languages I-III." "Turkic Languages" 1:1.117–133, 1:2.262–277, 2:1.130–151.
*Samoilovich, A. N. 1922. "Some additions to the classification of the Turkic languages". Petrograd. [http://s155239215.onlinehome.us/turkic/40_Language/LangClassificationEn.htm]
*Thompson, E.A. 1948. "A History of Attila and the Huns". London: Oxford University Press. Reedited by Peter Heather. 1996. "The Huns". Oxford: Blackwell.

External links

* "The World of the Huns" by Otto Maenchen-Helfen, University of California Press, 1973. [http://www.kroraina.com/huns/mh Chapter: "IX. Language"]
* [http://www.turkicworld.org/ "Türkic History"] . Pages on Huns, Bulgars and (Turkic) Avars.