麻豆淫院

New linguistic findings show that the European Huns had Paleo-Siberian ancestors and do not, as previously assumed, originate from Turkic-speaking groups. The joint study was conducted by Dr. Svenja Bonmann at the University of Cologne's Department of Linguistics and Dr. Simon Fries at the Faculty of Classics and the Faculty of Linguistics, Philology and Phonetics at the University of Oxford.

The results of the research, "Linguistic evidence suggests that Xio虅ng-n煤 and Huns spoke the same Paleo-Siberian language," have been in the journal Transactions of the Philological Society.

On the basis of various linguistic sources, the researchers reconstructed that the ethnic core of the Huns鈥攊ncluding Attila and his European ruling dynasty鈥攁nd their Asian ancestors, the so-called Xiongnu, shared a common language. This language belongs to the Yeniseian language family, a subgroup of the so-called Paleo-Siberian languages. These languages were spoken in Siberia before the invasion of Uralic, Turkic and Tungusic ethnic groups. Even today, small groups who speak a Yeniseian language still reside along the banks of the Yenisei River in Russia.

From the 3rd century BCE to the 2nd century CE, the Xiongnu formed a loose tribal confederation in Inner Asia. A few years ago, during archaeological excavations in Mongolia, a city was discovered that is believed to be Long Cheng, the capital of the Xiongnu empire. The Huns, in turn, established a relatively short-lived but influential multi-ethnic empire in southeastern Europe from the 4th to 5th centuries CE.

Research has shown that they came from Inner Asia, but their ethnic and linguistic origins have been disputed until now, as no written documents in their own language have survived. A great deal of what we know about the Huns and the Xiongnu is therefore based on written documents about them in other languages; for example, the term "Xio虅ng-n煤' derives from Chinese.

From the 7th century CE, Turkic peoples expanded westwards. It was therefore assumed that the Xiongnu and the ethnic core of the Huns, whose own westward expansion dates back to the 4th century CE, also spoke a Turkic language. However, Bonmann and Fries have found various linguistic indications that these groups spoke an early form of Arin, a Yeniseian language, in Inner Asia around the turn of the millennium.

"This was long before the Turkic peoples migrated to Inner Asia and even before the splitting of Old Turkic into several daughter languages. This ancient Arin language even influenced the early Turkic languages and enjoyed a certain prestige in Inner Asia. This implies that Old Arin was probably the native language of the Xiongnu ruling dynasty," says Bonmann.

Bonmann and Fries analyzed linguistic data based on loan words, glosses in Chinese texts, proper names of the Hun dynasty as well as place and water names. Taken by itself, the data on each of these aspects would have comparatively little significance, but taken together it is hard to argue with the conclusion that both the ruling dynasty of the Xiongnu and the ethnic core of the Huns spoke Old Arin.

The findings of the study also made it possible for the first time to reconstruct how the Huns came to settle in Europe: For the two researchers, place and water names still prove today that an Arin-speaking population once left its mark on Inner Asia and migrated westwards from the Altai-Sayan region. Attila the Hun probably also bears an ancient Arin name: Until now, "Attila" was thought to be a Germanic nickname ("little father"), but according to the new study, "Attila" could also be interpreted as a Yeniseian epithet, which roughly translates as "swift-ish, quick-ish."

The new linguistic findings support earlier genetic and archaeological findings that the European Huns are descendants of the Xiongnu. "Our study shows that alongside archaeology and genetics, comparative philology plays an essential role in the exploration of human history. We hope that our findings will inspire further research into the history of lesser-known languages and thereby contribute further to our understanding of the linguistic evolution of mankind," concludes Fries.