Talk:Hungarian people

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Contents 1 Older discussions 2 Last additions 3 Depression 4 Fast, slow, what? 5 Theories about the origin of Magyars 6 Disappearance 7 Map to be corrected 8 Magyars vs. Hungarians 8.1 EB and Encarta on Magyar vs. Hungarian 9 Table: Israel 10 Hungarian animals 11 Finno-Ugric "theory?" 12 Romanian presence at hungarian arrival 13 Later genetic influences 14 Genetics 15 Ugric Peoples? 16 Blood type 17 Demographics 18 An idea 19 Requested move 19.1 Survey 19.2 Discussion 20 Regions with significant populations 21 Parts cut out 22 Requested move: Hungarian people --> Hungarians 22.1 Survey 22.2 Discussion 23 NPOV formulation about some historians' claims 24 Numbers 25 Image 26 "related groups" info removed from infobox 27 Turkic people? 28 Which side of the Urals? 29 Regional Population 30 name 31 Editing 32 Number of Hungarians in Hungary 33 Hungary 34 picture of important hungarians 35 Subgroups 36 Who's Finno-Ugric theory? 37 Picture of important Hungarians 38 Religion 39 Onogurs 40 Finno-Ugric Origin dispute

[edit] Older discussions

Part of this talk page has been archived.       Click here for discussions before 2005-09-10.

[edit] Last additions

I am sure the numbers added are very disputable; the Magyars outside "the Basin" are missing; what exactly is the "Basin"; why should the percentage in "the Basin" be decisive etc etc. If you really feel that this paragraph must be added, then cite the source at least...Juro 01:02, 10 September 2005 (UTC)

Not quite.

• Fact #1: Magyars number in 1910 was 10.1, and 11.4 million in 2000
• Fact #2: Romanians, Croats, Slovenians have doubled, Slovaks, Serbs tripled theirs number.
• Fact #3: 100-200% population growth for non Magyars and only 15% for Magyars in the last century
• Fact #4: The population of Carpathian Basin today is around 33-34 million, 33-34% is still Hungarian
• Fact #5: It is not decisive but comparable
• Fact #6: Hungarian diaspora in the World is around 1.5-2 million

(2005.09.10) Again, cite your source (I am quite sure you have used some nationalist text) because these are quite important numbers, secondly taking the 1910 census as a basis is wrong (the number of Magyars was highly overstated), thirdly there are Magyars outside the "Basin" now, fourthly I still did not see the exact definition of "the Basin" (just the plain or what?), fifthly the neighbouring countries are not the cause of the high suicide rate and low birth rate in the country Hungary which is the main factor in this "problem", sixtly - ignoring what I have said above - if you are going to compare who "doubled/tripled" (numbers that always depend on what you take as a basis) then you should also show who tripled/doubled etc. before 1910 according to official Hungarian numbers in a clearly defined country called Kingdom of Hungary without any wars, border changes or other special circumstances (as compared to WWI etc.)...If I hadn't more important things to do now, I would look at those figures myself, maybe I will do that one day...Juro 16:42, 10 September 2005 (UTC)

(2005.09.11)

• I am not in the habit of using nationalist texts. No need for citation. They could be checked very easy.
  • If you do not have such a habit, then it will be no problem for you to cite your source. I am CALLING ON YOU for the third time now to cite your source, because you obviously do not carry such numbers in your head with you all the time (and if you say you do, then - you must admit - that's rather suspicious). As a remark: I have found a source saying that the number of Magyars at the time of the conquest was only 100,000 - 150,000 (you say up to 400,000): You see how important it is to cite the source in such cases. In fact, you can take virtually any number and you always find a source confirming it.
    • Well, here you are. I thought you dispute the 1900s datas.
      • Gesta Hungarorum gives the number of the Magyar clans at 108, and each of them could produce 2,000 armed men (seems quite dubious: 200,000 armed men = x 5 Magyar people = 1,000,000)
        • Using Gesta hungarorum for this is absolutely ridiculous, by the way...
      • Others, like Constantine, the Purple-born, wrote about some 50-60,000 warriors, which means x5 = 300,000 Magyars
      • There is a mutual understanding between Hungarian scholars accorind Magyars population. In their view around 350-5,000 Magyars entered the Carpathian Basin, in autumn 896--fz22 07:43, 13 September 2005 (UTC)
    • No, this is a misunderstanding. I have mentioned the number only to show that there are various sources for population numbers. The difference will be lower, however, for the 20th century, of course. So, as you correctly assume, I want to see your source for the 1900s data...By the way, I do not "dispute" anything, I just want to see the source...Juro 20:50, 13 September 2005 (UTC)

• OK, suppose was highly overstated ... but we are talking about absolute values. In 1910 10-11 million Magyars lived (according to Hungarian sources) in the CB and likewise 10-11 million Romanians in Transylvania, historical Moldova and Wallachia - verify this from authentic romanian sources if you want (HELP). Today these numbers are: 11 million Magyars and 22 million Romanians (~19 in Romania + 3 in the Republic of Moldova)

• Carphatian Basin definition given by C.A. Macartney: " The parts of it seem, indeed, designed by nature to form one harmonious whole. Through the heart of it the great river itself runs a course of nearly 600 miles, most of it through flat or flattish lands which form an oval plain, about 100,000 square miles in extent, 400 miles at its greatest width from west to east, 300 from north to south. This plain is surrounded by a ring of mountains, whose valleys converge on the central plain; of the rivers of Historic Hungary, only one flows north, to join the Vistula; one, like the Danube itself, cuts its own way through the Transylvanian Alps; all the rest join the Danube on its central course. The mountains, which in the north and east form an almost continuous wall, rarely broken, with the dense forests which up to recent times covered their slopes, form a natural defence for the plain, especially towards the east. The products of plain and mountain are mutually cornplementary, linking their inhabitants in a natural community of destiny."
  • OK...well, and now I would like to see a reliable source that is able to count the historic numbers of Magyars or of anybody on the territory defined in the above way (and there are 100 other definitions of the Carp. Basin of course)...Even if the source was able to do so, it was certainly not written by C.A. Macartney, was it?... I mean this is probably a joke...Probably you do not mean the Carpathian Basin, you mean the former territory of the Kingdom of Hungary (why don't you write that then??)...The point is that a source using such terminology as "the Basin" for (would-be) precise population numbers is rather suspicious and cannot be quite normal...Juro 02:55, 13 September 2005 (UTC)
    • So, then use Central Europe or Eastern Europe, or the teritory of the former Hunarian Kingdom or any other term you want.
    • What I WANT???????? But you have used the term in the text as a basic concept and used it as a basis for percentage numbers and for "everything! !!!...It is a difference from what territory you compute a percentage number or any number or are you going to deny basic mathematics? Is this how numbers are treated in Hungary nowadays or what??I suppose not...Another good reason to see the source...Juro 20:50, 13 September 2005 (UTC)

• (HELP) I'm very interesting if there exists a Romanian population estimation in the Carpato-Danubiao-Pontic region for the last 1500-2000 year?--fz22 07:49, 12 September 2005 (UTC)
  • Since Romania has demographers, there must be such estimates. I do not have them right now...You must ask a Romanian user...Juro 02:55, 13 September 2005 (UTC)

(2005.09.14)

• Unfortunatelly I cannot give you sources in english. Maybe you can try this instead. Romanians in Central-Europe or Hungarians in Central-Europe

According to this I claim that 10.065 million Magyars and 10.093 million Romanians lived in Central Europe in the early XX. century. These numbers rose to 22.045 million Romanians and 13.239 million Magyars until 1977-1980!

(1) And what about the remaining numbers?

• What other numbers?
  • OK. I see that you have no source, you just took several internet pages you liked (nobody knows whether they are compatible) and made your own conclusions. But that (namely original "research") is actually prohibited in the wikipedia. Ad What numbers? I have lost the overview as to what numbers are from which user, but you have added a lot of numbers about Magyars in Central Europe (haven't you?) and the above numbers are about Romania, so what about the rest??

(2) You must have a "normal" source, like a book, study, statistical tables...(I understand Hungarian, if that's the problem...)

• Splenind! I gave you two links in Hungarian. did you read it?
  • See above.

(3) And, as you can see you used the expression "Central Europe", so it's not the "Basin" anymore???Juro 11:20, 14 September 2005 (UTC)

• The difference is negligable - demographically - for Hungarians: BASIN + ~100,000 Magyars = Central Europe. Of course this formula is not aplicable for Romanians. For them use Central Europe - 17,000,000 = BASIN instead. ;)--fz22 14:04, 14 September 2005 (UTC)
• Again, I am not sure whether we still have that sentence, but you originally wrote that Magyars made up XY% of the Basin population...Here anything related to the "Basin" is not negligible, of course...Juro 20:13, 15 September 2005 (UTC)

(2005.09.16) You've right. The original research is prohibited, but the calculation is not. OK, I accept mabe I'm wrong in some exact numbers. The Magyars number was not 10.065, but 10.199 million, in 1910. Therefore I've used 10-11 million instead. Similarly You have the choice to make your own research and if you find completelty different numbers please inform us.

And that two link I gave you is nothing else than a digitized form of a recently published book in Hungary about nations in Central(Köztes) Europe between 175X - 1980(?). Given an overall picture about what Hungarian historians think about recent past of the region.

The "Basin" question: if you make a comparasion between Romanians and Magyars it is negligable wheter Croatia/Slovenia/Burgenland is included into the Basin or not. Romanians percentage compared to Magyars percentage will not change ... somewhat decrease from 54% respectivelly 15% to 54-c and 15-c--fz22 07:01, 16 September 2005 (UTC)

• It has clicked for me: here is the link about Magyars percentage in 1941 (only mangled Hungary): [1]

The number of Hungarians in Israel has been changed to 10,000. This is because there are only 10,000 ethnic hungarians in Israel. However there are around 250,000 jews of hungarian origin, but they are ethnically jewish, not hungarian. This article is trying to find out how many "ethnic hungarians" live world wide. Also in Australia, 62,000 people identified themselves as hungarian in the 2001 census.

[edit] Depression

It was me who added the mention to depression. Naturally, no link can be established between the various historical events and the depression among Magyars, but my original formulation was "[...] all contributed to a general feeling of depression" (emphasis added). I don't think this is so wild a speculation, though it can probably be fine-tuned. That the percentage of depressed people is unusually high among Magyars, in turn, is pretty much of an established fact; I can't cite anything off the top of my head, but I remember having seen studies showing this, of which the high number of suicides is but a well-measurable effect. I suppose that this has more to do with the people in Hungary than with Magyars in general, but as to the demographic consequences, the two are more and more correlated. Which brings me to the point of mentioning this at all: it was not to say that the number of Magyars is anyhow "too low", but simply to provide some context for the demographic estimate of 2050, a quite low but still correct one for a group today numbering over 11 million. It is, of course, more of a speculation that the low number of births is (at least partly) due to depression, though I wouldn't be surprised to see that someone has already established that link.

As for Magyarisation, I still maintain that the words I removed are superfluous and have no other effect than being less concise, but I can live with the current version (with "largely" added, so "solely" not implied).

KissL 09:05, 12 September 2005 (UTC)

I can only repeat that you cannot be serious if you think that Trianon or WWII has something to do with the current and future demographic development (until 2050?????!) in Hungary...It could have had (but it had not, of course) something to do with the general demographic development in the interwar period and in the 50s/60s, but the demographice development started just AFTER these periods (the population of Hungary started to decrease only around 1980 and decreased by more than 1 million (!!) persons until 2003)...How can you even contemplate such totally illogical things in obvious contradiction with reality??? If we start to write such non-sense here then you can really write anything that comes to your mind, that will yield the same in the end...Juro 02:32, 13 September 2005 (UTC)

You're not getting my point. I'm not contemplating a direct connection between Trianon and the demographic development. What I am assuming is that Trianon is one of the reasons behind depression, and that depression is one of the reasons behind the demographic development in Hungary. Both assumptions are common sense. I didn't force any direct connection between Trianon and demographics into the article.

And as for when that development started - there has been an absolutely constant decrease in the number of children per possible parents since before WWII. In particular, the population decrease that started in the 1980s had been on schedule for at least two decades, because already in the 1960s the fertility rate dropped low enough so that there were less children than possible parents despite the so-called "Ratkó era", which (precisely in the 1960s when this trend first alarmed the political elite) saw numerous efforts to increase the willingness of the population to have children, and did in fact produce an outstanding (but still insufficient) "wave" of childbirth for a few years.

There is more to demographics than increase or decrease in a population - there are lots of dependencies on age structure, because death rates are more or less determined by the number of aged people, while birth rates are determined by both the number of reproductive women and a set of socioeconomical constraints. So to state that the current development started around 1980 would be a huge mistake.

In view of this, what are the "totally illogical" things I am contemplating "in obvious contradiction with reality?"

KissL 09:25, 13 September 2005 (UTC)

These are well-known things, the problem is I am not criticising the statement that someone was allegedly depressed, I am criticising the whole part of the text, which MAKES the above connection. And I repeat this for the 5th time already that the text

-was saying after you have edited it (as you claim above)

-and partly it is still saying

exactly what I am saying above (meaning it is still illogical), because even if we assumed that there was a demographic change IN HUNGARY say right at the time of Trianon or right in 1945, it then still continues and intesifies and is similar to developments in other countries, which itself shows that it has nothing to do with Trianon etc. and every demographer knows it. Finally, actually I am not interested in what you or anybody personally thinks, wanted to write (but did not) or things like that, I am only interested in having a text here that at least does not contain lies (wanted or not) -given that the article is far from ideal anyway- and that's what I am talking about here all the time. But Zello said above he would write a more precise text, so let'see (hopefully)... Ah yes, I mentioned the above decrease only to show what a difference it is whether one looks at numbers say of 1910-1970 or at numbers of 1910-2003 - and what is the (huge) difference, i.e. the "problem"? Answer: The internal development in Hungary. But what does the text imply? The problem of the TOTAL number of Magyars in an undefined "Basin" (including Hungary) lies abroad and in WWI and WWII. This is what the text says now, I do not know how to explain it in simpler terms. Juro 20:40, 13 September 2005 (UTC)

I wrote the new section about demographics. All of my data came from Ignác Romsics's new book (History of Hungary in the 20th century). Sorry KissL but I deleted the expression "depression". However I think the last paragraph (from Fz222) needs a little upgrading (datas etc) in any case and there you can find a place for this thought. Zello 00:02, 14 September 2005 (UTC)

Where are the new numbers from? I don't think that Romsics made mistakes in such an important question... Zello 09:17, 14 September 2005 (UTC)

I reverted the sentence because of two reasons:

• The new numbers were dubious, and I mentioned a good, widely recognised source for my datas, so I don't see any reason not to stick to the former version.

• I think it important to indicate the major population losses of the 20th century. After all 0,5-1 million people maters something - even in a demographic point of view. Zello 20:49, 15 September 2005 (UTC)

I do not agree with you (see above /Last changes/) The population of Hungary was 7.9 out of which 7.1 million were Magyars in 1910 (the article is about Magyars not Germans, Jewish, Romas etc) 'til 1941 this number rose to ~8,500,000 in Hungary plus 2.5 - 3,000,000 million in neighbouring countries and to 10,500,000 in Hungary + 2,500,000 million in n.c. in 1980.--fz22 07:35, 16 September 2005 (UTC)

I think it is not good idea to exclude nationalities from population estimates because they were part of the Hungarian nation. But yes, in this sense you are right, I looked up the numbers in the Romsics book:

• 1920 7,9 million - Magyar 7,1 million
• 1941 9,3 million - Magyar 8,6 million
• 1980 10,7 million - Magyar 10,4 million (officially) - 9,8 million with estimated 800 000 Gypsy

We should decide wether we use these numbers or we speak about the total population of Hungary. Kissl, Juro?

• As for the other: the victims and emigrants of the 20th century were mostly Magyars in all sense. Hungarian soldiers at the Don, emigrants after 1956 etc. Jews were always counted before as Magyars so its not fair to exclude them at this point (were they "good" in the census of 1910?). Zello 11:17, 16 September 2005 (UTC)

• Yes, that's true, but we are talking here about the 1100 year old Magyars people and not about political nation of Hungary. In the retrospect of 1100 year of Magyar history the appearance of Magyarized Jewish people after 1850 (around 70,000) and their dramatic dissapearance in 1944 (they numbered around 800,000 in 1910) was a chapter although very tragic chapter of Hungary and not Magyars history. Demograpically speaking of course. Similarly the Germans. They were never counted as Magyars ...--fz22 12:11, 16 September 2005 (UTC)

1100 year old Magyar people almost doesn't exist in genetical terms. You won't find anybody in the country whose all ancestor came here with Árpád. Magyars absorbed an immense number of other peoples in their history, and Jews were one of them. As I said before 1944 they were counted as Magyars in every census... But I won't fight for this question, this topic is too heated now.

• No need for fighting. Take a look over this: Jewish people in Eastern Europe--fz22 12:59, 16 September 2005 (UTC)

It makes no sense to speak Magyars as a whole after Trianon. Of course this is one nation, but the demographic process were not the same in Hungary and in the neighbouring countries. Zello 12:28, 16 September 2005 (UTC)

Of course not. Assimilation and emmigration was typical of minority Magyars. But the negative population growth rate affects the whole Central Europe with minor differences. (1990 for Romanians / but 1977-1980 for Magyars in Transylvania / 1980 for Magyars in Hungary) --fz22 12:51, 16 September 2005 (UTC)

OK. I can only say that I largely agree with Zello. The current version is quite in order, provided the numbers are correct (I wished I had the time and mood to check them...). Maybe it would be really helpful to also point out the development of other nationalities in Hungary to show that these numbers are tied to Hungary as a country, but on the other hand this article is called "Magyars", so I don't know...Juro 22:09, 16 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Fast, slow, what?

I don't understand this new sentence from the anonymous contributor. What's this? Zello 15:07, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

I deleted these chart with obviously incorrect data: there isn't any country like Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia today, there isn't 200 000 Magyars in Russia (probably it was a mistake for Ukraine) and I think it's not a good idea to make such estimations about Magyars in the US or Canada where assimilation is very fast. Zello 08:35, 2 October 2005 (UTC)

I'm not kidding, you must update your chart because it's out of date and incorrect. Zello 20:43, 2 October 2005 (UTC)

Good job on updating my estimates. I had my total estimation pretty close though. Anyway, do you like the image or would you want me to make a new one? ..

For me it's OK. But if you make longer contributions, register a user name because man sees anonymous editors with mistrust. Zello 19:21, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Theories about the origin of Magyars

It is a debated issue, but to give a complete picture I think it is worth adding Alinei and Krantz, since their work is peer-reviewed scholarly work, and it is not likely that they have a pro-Hungarian nationalist bias. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 129.27.161.101 (talk • contribs) 16:34, 12 October 2005 (UTC).

There is a page about Hungarian prehistory where you should mention this kind of speculations. But THIS page about the Magyars contains only facts and widely accepted scientific theories. Zello 21:38, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

Facts in history? Sorry, but in that subject everything is more or less speculation, in particular if it happened thousand or thousands of years ago. The problem with the Hungarian Pre-History page is that it seems to be the page of a single person's opinion, moreover it includes non peer-reviewed and unscientific speculation. Thus Alinei and Krantz do not belong there. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 129.27.161.101 (talk • contribs) 10:00, 13 October 2005 (UTC).

To 129.27.161.101 - Read WP:NOR and you'll see that this doesn't belong here. Besides, think about all the non-experts who will click on a link saying Hungarian somewhere. This sure is not the kind of info they will want to know. (BTW you can, and should, sign your posts using four tildes, like this: ~~~~.) KissL 10:21, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

I think it would be useful to develop Hungarian prehistory page a place where every "alternative" theory about the origin of the Magyars is collected and reviewed. Of course everything about the ancient period is more or less speculation but here it's better to stick to the "official" thesis. Zello 11:05, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

Dear KissL

Forgive my harsh judgment, but I think your reasoning is somewhat flawed. The work of Krantz and Alinei are not original research in the sense it is described in WP:NOR. Alinei is an established linguist whose celebrated continuity theory is considered fundamental. The late Krantz was an established anthropologist, who was considered an expert on human evolution, and while his "bigfoot" material received much media attention (due to its sensational nature), his expertise in his own field was never questioned, not to mention that even in the bigfoot case (not entirely his field) he was never disproven. Furthermore the article gives space to the Sumerian theory (which sounds like it may be original research) without citation, whereas I have given Krantz's book and Alinei's as the citation. The non-experts should be aware that there is a debate, and I think as long as it is only mentioned but the main emphasis is not placed on them it is not in any way misleading. More misleading is to place Sumerian and other theories without citation, dismiss them also without citation and exclude the theories (even if somewhat marginal) which were proposed by respected experts in various fields. Your claim about redundance is somewhat questionable as well...

It is also notable the Alinei is often referred to by Slavic historians since his continuity theory refutes the notion of Slavic presence in Europe only agter the 6th century. While Alinei is not cited on the page describing Slavic peoples it appears that it is his theories that are presented there, so there is really no reason to exclude them from here either. But I guess the idea is that Slavs are OK, Magyars should be excluded whenever possible. It would be great if Eastern Europe grew up!

Thank you for the suggestion regarding the signature. I do not have an account yet...

Dear Zello,

There is a problem with alternative theories mixed with alternative theories. While I do not want to exclude work not necessarily ratified by the experts, but there may be reasons for not grouping together something like Alinei or Krantz with the work of fringe nationalists.

Februus129.27.161.101 11:15, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

For me both theories seems to be wild enough and none of them is new. Etruscan-Hungarian relationship was a popular idea in the 2 half of the 19 century. There are a lot of authors who propagates that Magyars inhabited the Carpathian Basin even in the Stone Age. It's interesting that there are non-Hungarian followers of this speculation but this is simply out of the normal scholarly discussion. Zello 14:18, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

The two theories are somewhat "wild". But the funny thing is in the article some "wild" theories are mentioned, without citation and discredited without citation. Balazs 21:00, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

The article is about the Magyars and not about the origin of the Magyars. I don't think we should discuss alternative theories in this article. But for me it is OK to mention Etruscans and Stone Age-inhabitants together with the others in the list. Zello 21:21, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Disappearance

I think the version of Codex Sinaiticus is reflecting the old thesis of public law about the Kingdom of Hungary. According to that the KoH was an independent state even under the Habsburg rule wich was only a personal but not a real union. Of course the sphere of authority of the King was very large so de facto it was a real union but not de jure. This thesis was a bit corrupted by the Pragmatica Sanctio, strengthened in 1792, and even more corrupted by the Ausgleich but was never gave up by the prominent statesmen of Hungary (including Deák) and the Hungarian Parliament. So after 1920 nothing happened but the King has lost his rights, the country became totally independent again, and - of course - two-thirds of its territory was lost. Zello 03:14, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

I know, this is an interesting topic. The main point here is that this is an article about Magyars (not about the Kingdom of Hungary), where such things are out of place, and Codex S.' version was simply misleading in that it seemed to imply that the Kingdom of Hungary somehow completely ceased to exist in 1526/1700/1867 (?), which is not the case. It is quite normal to speak of a Kingdom of Hungary up to 1918 both at that time and in present history texts and it is completely common in the history of other countries to keep the designation XY kingdom even when there are personal and other unions. And what happened after 1920 was not part of the edit, as I have understood it.Juro 04:08, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

Yes you are absolutely right, I think all three of us speaks about the same :) As I understood, the expression of "came back into being" applies to the INDEPENDENT KoH, not the KoH in all. But you are right it is really misleading a bit Zello 13:34, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Map to be corrected

I found this image in the Varangians article. Maybe somebody could help the writers of that article and tell them exactly where Magyars should be in the map. It would be interesting to clarify the connections between Magyars and Varangians (Vikings) anyway, because they were neighbours for a certain period of time. --KIDB 14:35, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

the mazar languane were used: avaria, khazaria, sarmatia.

I'd indicate Magyars between the Dnieper and Donets rivers, adjacent to the Slavs, excluding, however, the Crimea; as well as between the Bulgars and the Ural River, in what is now Bashkortostan, since the article states that the Bashkirs were Hungarian-speaking prior to the Mongol invasion. Florian Blaschke 13:01, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Magyars vs. Hungarians

I know that "Magyar" is the native form, while "Hungarian" is an exonym, but in English "Hungarian" is much more used:

Google search: (excluding wikipedia hits)

• 2,000,000 hits on Hungarians
• 183,000 hits on Magyars

Google books:

• 39,200 pages on Hungarians
• 13,700 pages on Magyars

Our Wikipedia policy is to put the page in the most commonly used English name, which would be in this case "Hungarians". Any thoughts about this? bogdan 14:06, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

Oh my..., first, you should NEVER use google tests, secondly , Hungarian means "referring to Hungary" or to "Magyars", while Magyars only means referring to "Magyars". And this is a text about Magyars. Juro 17:20, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

Juro, in the Slovakian language there is a distinction between "Uhorsko" and "Madarsko" the first meaning the Kingdom of Hungary and the second referring to present-day Hungary, am I right? The reason behind this sophisticated approach is that Slovaks have a lot to do with both the historical and present-day Hungary, so they developed this terminology.

In the Hungarian language, there is no such distinction, neither in English, and I am sure there are many native English speakers who have no clue who these "Magyars" are at all. The expression is, however, convinient if you would like to talk about the Hungarian speaking ethnic group within the Kingdom of Hungary. The expression "ethnic Hungarian" can also be used for the same reason. I think the suggestion of Bogdan is worth to consider, and to talk about. --KIDB 17:41, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

In romanian there is "ungur" and "maghiar". The "huns" and the "magyars" were different migratory tribes-- Bonaparte talk 21:09, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

Bonaparte, we're talking about English usage not Romanian or Slovakian. Alexander 007 21:11, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

And Bonaparte, "ungur" is derived from "Onogur", not from "Hun". bogdan 21:25, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

Juro: in the English-speaking world, Magyars are more often known as Hungarians. To say "sometimes known as Hungarians" is misleading. You do not live in an English-speaking country, unless I'm mistaken. I do. Many English-speakers will stare blankly when you say Magyar. When you say Hungarian, they know what you're talking about. We have Hungarian restaurants here, not Magyar restaurants. Alexander 007 17:57, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

No, this has nothing to do with Slovak. The ethnic group is called Magyars in English (or German) expert texts (see e.g. [2]). Actually, you should know that. "Hungarian" is a popular "mistake". And an encyclopedia should inform people and not take over their errors. I know that people use "Hungarian", I know that they do not know what "Magyars" are (I myself also use "Hungarian" in normal communication), but that is not a reason. It would be a reason, if Hungarian had no other meaning, but it has. That's the same "mistake" like using Slovakian instead of Slovak - English people do not know Europe enough and just take the name of the country and add -ian. And my point above was that if you take google or actually any usual discussion, you cannot distinguish whether Hungarian refers to the country or to the ethnicity. And of course, it mostly refers to the country. Juro 18:21, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

Juro, if I change "Magyars" to "Hungarians" in the search that you just linked and it gave almost 3 times as many hits: 38600 vs. 13500.

I'm a Hungarian living in an English speaking country BTW. :)

I strongly support Bogdan's suggestion. -- nyenyec ☎ 19:08, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

You have not read what I have written above. Once again: Point ione: EXPERT texts use Magyar, Point two: How do you know that Hungarians always refers to ethnicity?...But do what you want, I see any expertise is useless here. Juro 19:20, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

BTW this has nothing to do with whether you are Hungarian or not, but with whether you have ever read an expert text on this topic. No true expert would ever use Hungarian, because it is ambiguous. Juro 19:22, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

I recently purchased a book called "The Hungarians: A Thousand Years of Victory in Defeat". Would this qualify as an "expert text"? I support Bogdan's suggestion too. If an American were to go to a library and want information about Magyars they would look under "H" for Hungarians. No non-expert would ever think to look up "Magyar". An encyclopedia is supposed to serve non-experts, no? But at the same time, it seems silly to be arguing semantics. Wouldn't it be good enough to simply have a redirect? --Stacey Doljack Borsody 21:57, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

In our context, expert text means a text dealing with ethnic groups (just like this one). The title you are citing clearly has other objectives (as its wording shows). Actually, I should find some quotes now, but since I see it is useless in the long run, I won't. I have described the reasons. Google wins :) Let's hope, nuclear power plants do not start to explode one day, because the operators start to behave according to what google says :)). Juro 00:45, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

I guess this is where I'm at a loss. I'm unclear on why you apply such a context to this article and why you seem to be missing the point that it is common usage in English for "Hungarian" meaning the ethnic group. Have you considered why Magyars introduce themselves as "Hungarian" and not "Magyar" to English speakers? In some ways this reminds me a bit like using the word "salt". In common usage we refer to NaCl as salt even though the word "salt" can refer to multiple substances. English speakers don't go around asking "pass the sodium chloride". If a school child was assigned to do a report on salt, the first thing they would do is go look up the word "salt" in an encyclopedia, not "sodium chloride". As with "salt", a school child would go look up "Hungarian" in an online encyclopedia, not "Magyar". This is why I fail to see why you would apply this expert text context here. Wikipedia doesn't strike me as an ethnographic journal read by grad students. --Stacey Doljack Borsody 17:03, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

Just to be clear on this issue, the term "Hungarian" means "anybody living in Hungary." Especially before 1918, there were many, many, many Hungarians who were not Magyars - more than half the population of Hungary, in fact. These included Germans, Jews (although some Jews and Germans had, during the 19th century, begun identifying themselves as Magyars), Slovaks, Croats, Ruthenes, Romanians, and Serbs. The issue has been somewhat obscured by the fact that present-day Hungary is fairly uniformly Magyar in ethnicity (although, should we describe Magyars in Romania as Hungarian?). But it is still a significant enough reason to keep this article at Magyars. john k 01:55, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

I am afraid we can't be totally sophisticated in this field. If you continue this way, you should establish a way to define eg. ethnic Romanians not living in Romania. Most of them would not be happy if we started to call them Vlachs. --KIDB 10:06, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

Yes, we should describe Hungarians in Romania as Hungarias. At least that's what they do: http://www.rmdsz.ro/script/mainframe.php?lang=eng. Vay 14:16, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

The problem is not really how to decribe Magyars living outside of Hungary, I just threw that in as a passing thought. The problem is how to describe non-Magyars living in Hungary. Historically, they were considered "Hungarians," but not Magyars, and this is a fairly consistent usage. john k

Re: non-Magyars in Hungary: You can use the expression Ethnic Serbian living in Hungary, or Swabians living in Hungary / ethnic Germans in Hungary (they use the term "UngarnDeutsche" as far as I know). We should not invent new expressions in Wikipedia, should we?

Hungarian Croatians, or Hungarian Serbs? Not really. I don't think all members of these minority groups would like these expressions. Altough "Hungarian" in English literally means citizen of the Republic of Hungary, in reality Hungarian very often means ethnic Hungarian, similarly to "English" which both refers to people living in England and people with English ethnicity. --KIDB 08:30, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

John, Just to elaborate a bit more on the issue - I see you are American - being politically correct in the US is a bit different from being politically correct in Central Europe.

When the Kingdom of Hungary still existed, all minorities had their own name in the Hungarian (Magyar) language, eg. "Rác" meant Serbian, Slovaks were "Tót", Romanians "Oláh" (=Vlach), etc. In modern Hungary, these traditional expressions are already not in use. Today, they are called Serb, Slovak, etc.

If you are looking for similar old English expressions describing these minorities within the Kingdom of Hungary, you will not find any, because Britons were not too much interested in etchnic issues of Central Europe, so these words simply did not develop in the English language.

Regarding "Magyars", as I wrote earlier, the expression may be useful if you are discussing the history of the ethnic group with experts. If you are talking about the etchnic group of present days, "Hungarian" or "ethnic Hungarian" seems more appropriate for me. --KIDB 13:39, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

I know that Hungarian is used, and I can appreciate that in Hungary, ethnic minorities were never called Hungarian. But we do use the word Magyar in English, and we do use it to refer specifically to the Magyar ethnicity. The word "Hungarian" can also be used in this sense, but is more ambiguous. I don't see why we shouldn't use the clear, unambiguous term, which is most certainly used very frequently in English, when it is available. john k 17:41, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] EB and Encarta on Magyar vs. Hungarian

It seems that...

Britannica uses both:

• Magyar: Any member of the dominant ethnic group in Hungary...
• Hungarian: also called Magyar, member of a people speaking the Hungarian language of the Finno-Ugric family and living primarily in Hungary, but represented also by large minority populations in Romania, Croatia, Vojvodina (Yugoslavia), Slovakia, and Ukraine...

Encarta uses Magyars:

• Magyars: Magyars, people who founded and continue to inhabit the state of Hungary...
• Hungarian -> Hungarian Language

-- nyenyec ☎ 17:14, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Table: Israel

Are there really 10,000 Magyars in Israel? If Magyar is to be read as an ethnic group, shouldn't it exclude Hungarian Jews, who were ethnically distinct? I know that many Hungarian Jews in the late 19th century assimilated and came to identify themselves as Magyars, but it's hard to see as those that subsequently left Hungary and settled in Israel would still so consider themselves. Or is there a large community of non-Jewish Magyars in Israel? john k 02:00, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

As you wrote in the previous article ("although some Jews and Germans had, during the 19th century, begun identifying themselves as Magyars") there were a lot of jews in Hungary in the 20th century who considered themselves to be Magyars, with Israeli religion. Ask Tony Curtis, why he comes back to Hungary sometimes. --KIDB 07:43, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

Probably the 10,000 "Magyars" in Israel are simply relatives of Jewish Hungarians from mixed mariages. bogdan 10:54, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

Have a look at www.ethnologue.com[[3]]. According to this source, there are some 70.000 people in Israel speaking Hungarian. This may be an exaggerated number, but I can imagine there are 10.000 people in Israel considering themselves Hungarian (Magyar). --KIDB 13:32, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

Possibly. There are many long-time Israelis who speak Romanian also, though I don't know how they identify themselves. Alexander 007 13:34, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

In Hungary, there's a tradition among Jews that they consider themselves Hungarians with a particular religion ("mózeshitű magyarság"). Even today this is the official policy of major Jewish organizations (like Mazsihisz) - that's why they opposed accepting the Jewish minority as a national minority during the early 90s. However, there's a new wave of Jewish organizations with the goal of amending the relevant Act so that it qualify Jewish as a national minority (www.zsidokisebbseg.com). Those Jews, however, who emigrated to Israel, IMO cannot be counted as Hungarians without further consideration (the decisive factor is whether they consider themselves Hungarians or not). (Similarly, Hungarians like to boast about Hungarian-born Nobel prize winners (many of them with Jewish ancestry) - although not all of them actually considered themselves Hungarians). Vay 14:33, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

Vay, I know that in Hungary, Jews generally consider themselves Hungarian. I was just wondering whether Jews who emigrated to Israel consider themselves Hungarian. john k 18:31, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

Some of them consider, some of them not; obviously. Gubbubu 17:33, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

What is this nonesense, I am an Israeli of half "hungarian" jewish origin, I don't think "hungarian" jews here consider themselves or really are genetically Hungarians/Magyars.. they/we are just Jewish of that region just like other Jewish people of other regions. User:Yaron Livne 03:31, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

Sorry but people in the past had no clue about "genetics" however they could have considered culturally Hungarians, if you or your family don't that's another issue (and WP:OR) and doesn't invalidate what other people felt. -- man with one red shoe (talk) 03:52, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

Hehe, I expected this, but what are you saying? That all those thousends of "hungarian jews" here in Israel think of themselves as part of the Hungarian ethnic group? I don't think so.. I think they are all like my grandparents, Jewish people that came from the hungarian speaking area.. Just like other Jewish groups from other parts of the world.. Maybe I really don't know.. or maybe there is a big problem of definition here, but it's just wierd to see the Israeli flag on that table, with a big number. User:Yaron Livne 05:32, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Hungarian animals

I created an independent article for Hungarian animals and gave only a link here. The topic is interesting of course but it is really weird to read about animals here where we speak generally about Hungarian people. And not only weird, indeed it is insulting (even I know this wasn't your intention!). Simply: I'm not an animal :) Zello 15:36, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

I accept your point ... The location was unhappy ... --fz22 16:04, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

...and it was added after the section "Later genetic influences". :-) bogdan 15:46, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Finno-Ugric "theory?"

The Finno-Ugric languages are a very well-attested group of languages, as is the classification of Hungarian as of the Ugric subgroup of that family. Why does the article address this so tentavely as if it were controversial? Among linguists it is not controversial at all; no more contraversial than the fact that French is descended from Latin.--Rob117 04:41, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

I think theory is a neutral word - there were a lot of linguistic debates in the 19-20th centuries about the origin of the Magyars and the Finno-Ugric theory was the most convincing among then. Even though the topic remained very controversial not like the origin of French, and the article shows this. Zello 07:32, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

I don't think (too) that the classification of hungarian language would be well-attested. the word "Theory" is applicable and neutral. Among linguists the origin of hungarians and related theories (e.g. the Theory of Finno-Ugric Ancient Home) is more than disputed (this theory, for example, disputed even among finno-ugrist linguists). Gubbubu

One must also consider that just because a people speak a language, it doesn;t mean that they are that ethnicity. Ie the majority of today;s Hungarian's are probably descendents from slavs , dacians and , less so, Bulgars that lived in Pannonia. The Magyar language was imposed by the Magyars who were probably a numerically inferior ruling core. Hxseek123.243.240.160 12:00, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

First of all, what you written, Anonymous, is irrelevant for the topic. Second, your claim is unattested and highly unprobable, as I can demonstrate by historical parallels. If the Hungarians were a ruling core, inferior in number, the language would have been lost. Consider all the other examples in that time (give or take 200 years): Bulgars: ruling Turkish core took on Slavic language; Kiev Rus: ruling Normannic core took on Slavic language; Normandy: ruling Normannic core took on Old French language; England (after 1066) ruling (French speaking) Normannic (Normandy-French) core took on Germanic (Old English) language (of course the ruling class left its trace in form of loaned words in the language) -- All the examples within the geographical and time frame indicate, that the scenario you painted is highly improbable. Szabi 13:03, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Nevertheless DNA analysis places Hungarian people closer to (you won't like it) Romanians and even other population from Balkans: Bulgarians and Greeks than other groups. If you want I'll provide supporting data, but I actually mentioned this only as "by the way" since I don't think this is a relevant or important issue. -- AdrianTM 18:14, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

BTW also, it is known that western eurasian nomads were all rather mixed DNA-wise before they even migrated into the region and the Magyars were no exception. See for example http://dienekes.blogspot.com/2006/04/mtdna-of-ancient-cumanians.html Hxseek, nomadic societies didn't hold the same definition of ethnicity that we settled and "civilized" peoples do so to make statements that assume Magyars were some sort of genetically homogenous core group that imposed their language upon an ethnically different majority is rather baseless. --Stacey Doljack Borsody 23:14, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

If Adrian's post was meant for me, I don't understand it. If not, please ignore. I was not referring to DNA whatsoever. I think, you have a wrong definition of ethnicity in mind. Ethnicity does pretty little to do with appearance or genetics, it's a cultural concept.

My post merely refered to the fact that the user identified with 123.243.240.160 did several mistakes on the one hand, and on the other hand he was off-topic additionally: (a) the finno-ugric theory has nothing to do with either ethnicity or genetics. It's a linguistic theory (one that stands on very stable fundaments). (b) He assumes that ethnicity is defined by genetics. It's not (see also Wikipedia article on ethnicity). (c) It's true, that the genetic pool of todays Hungarians shares a lot with the neighbouring people (it would be sad, if not), but again, that does not have to do anything with the Finno-Ugric theory. But also, how does that disprove the existence of the Hungarian ethicity? (Which he tries to suggest by linking his first and second sentence), and finally (d) his third sentence was (as I already put it) not true by very high probability, to a degree, that one would in casual conversation say it to be bluntly false.

I wanted to clarify that, if the posts were not meant for me, ignore it, and I also believe, that I have elaborated on the topic enough, and will contribute to this thread only concerning its title (Finno-Ugric "theory?"). Szabi 11:52, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

I responded to both of you, I thought that the DNA issue might be relevant to the "Hungarians were a ruling core, inferior in number" issue discussed by both of you, user 123.243.240.160 doesn't seem to discuss the linguistic issues per se, he/she talks about the fact that the language was imposed, or transferred if you want to a larger population, you contradicted him providing some examples that show that this didn't happen in other cases, I just provided a supporting element for his claim (assuming that of course somebody would find improbably that the Hungarians speaking population coming from Asia had similar DNA with people from Balkans). If you want to contradict user 123.243.240.160 you can do it by claiming that ethnicity is not what he think he is, not by saying that "If the Hungarians were a ruling core, inferior in number, the language would have been lost" which seems to be false in the light of the DNA evidence -- that there are also examples of small ruling core imposing/transferring the language to a larger population -- see National Geographic's Genographic project, there is an interesting article about this issue regarding the population in Great Britain. -- AdrianTM 12:35, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Romanian presence at hungarian arrival

I didn`t imply anything, I gaved sources... what else do you want? Greier 14:24, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

Daco-Romanian theory is very much a question of controversy not only between Romanian and Hungarian historians but among the international scientific community. There are wikipedia articles where you can follow the arguments and counterarguments of both side. The reader should look up the Origin of Romanians article which quite a good one and even contains your sources! The version I proposed doesn't claim that Daco-Romanian theory is false. If something is controversial than wikipedia mentions controversiality as a rule of NPOV. Zello 15:18, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

But what has the so-called "daco-theory" have to do with my adds to the article??? Not only that it`s not a controversy, but it`s validity has nothing to do with the article. Let`s assume that there is no connection between romanians and a local romanised population, and that romanians did migrate from somewhere, but when the magyars arrived, they were already there. The mentions of the other populations (avars, slavs, bulgars, etc) are based on sources and intrepretation of other, more vague, sources (in other words, common sense). Well, I repeat myself: I GAVED SOURCES!!! What else do you want? It doesn`t matter that they are already mentioned in Origin of Romanians, since that`s a completely different article, wich (another repetition) HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH WHAT THIS IS ALL ABOUT. One last thing, you mentioned Transilvania. Well, actually, my comments refer to Pannonia, not to Transylvania. Greier 16:51, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

Your sources are controversial. See wikipedia about Gesta Hungarorum. As you certainly know opponents of Daco-Romanian continuity deny the existence of Romanized people in the Carpathian Basin after the 6. century until the arrival of Romanians in the 12. century. Any claim that Romanized people lived there between this dates is the Daco-Romanian theory itself. It's a basic rule of NPOV that you can't present controversial things as generally accepted facts. Zello 01:26, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

Ok, than we can be somewhere in the middle. I think this is the best way to put it: and Romanians in the east and southeast. As I sayd: the sources and the common sense (it would be pathetic, even for the most nationalistic hungarian, not to recognise that there is something wrong in saying that in the 10th century romanians were not there, but 100 years later the suddendly appeared, BUUMMM!!!! just like that, from nowhere) show the presence of romanians in Transylvania and Pannonia, but this is questioned by some historians (and for that I added: although this is matter of controversy (see Daco-Romanian continuity.)

Something I don`t agree with: and especially the various nations (Germans, Slovaks, Romanians, Serbs, Croats and others), invited to resettle the depopulated territories after the departure of the Turks in the 18th century. First of all, there wasn`t ever such a "invitation", and secondly, the romanian element in the creation on modern hungarian nation spead for centuries, from the 11th century, well into the 21th (I say 21th because in Trasylvania there are still hungarian speaking people, with hungarian names, but with orthodox confesion, and calling themselves romanians. Most probably, decades from now they will be "hungarians". In the article I put 18th century, to prevent any controversies). It is a way too complex event (e.g.: the self-magyarisation of romanians to beneficiate (enjoy) better privileges, forced magyarisation, etc) to be mentioned in the article (plus that there already a link tomagyarisation, where such things could be better expressed).

Only a personal comment: don't panic - with current and historical demographic trends in a hundred year time there won't be any Hungarian people in Romania. There is strong hope. Zello 19:22, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

Anyway, I see no reason for you to keep editing the article, except to present vague and/or subjective info. For that, I ask that maybe there`s someone in charge here to settle this thig out, and explain what`s wrong with my edits (if there is something wrong with them...) Greier 18:43, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

1, About Daco-Romanian controversy: if you are able to stick to this version I think it OK and NPOV. But not necessary to mention one-by-one the sources. If the reader is interested in the topic there is the link to the article.

2, You are right that Romanians and Hungarians lived together since the Middle Ages so they mixed up with each other not only in the 18th century but all the time. The same is true for Slovaks so the sentence certainly needs rephrasing. Your present version is unacceptable because it implies that Hungarian minority in Transylvania are only Magyarized Romanians. Co-existing and blending was very much two way street and the ethnic proportions of Transylvania are again a very controversial topic. Zello 19:03, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

3, If you think that you are not able cooperate with me than you should request the community for comment about the article/my person (RfC). Look up the Tutorial about how these things work! Zello 19:31, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

At the Hungarian conquest, the Hungarian nation numbered between 250,000 and 450,000 people. Any reliable sources for these numbers? Greier 18:54, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

A very official source: http://www.magyarorszag.hu/angol/orszaginfo/tortenelem/tortenelem - about 500 000 Zello 23:02, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

Are you serious? It`s very "official" and really scientific... Greier 17:36, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

The official homepage of the Hungarian Government. Historical section written by László Kontler, Professor of History in the University of Budapest. Zello 17:52, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

László Kontler is a well known right wing nationalist and the Faculty of History at the University of Budapest is the place where graduated abb. 1/4 of the leadership members of the far right extremists groups in Hungary. The source is of course official, but nevertheless racist and nationalistic ! Not a serious historian outside Hungary would agree with estimations above 75.000 regarding the size of the Hungarian tribes at the time of the conquest (9th century AD) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.196.150.157 (talk) 05:53, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, what are you talking about? Kontler is also a professor at CEU, a well-known anti-nationalistic multicultural University, founded by Soros, whom most extreme nationalist would like to see hanged by the rope at the earliest convenience. To label him as a right-wing nationalist is not a simple distortion of facts: it's an outright lie. As for numbers, it is a well-known historical fact that Hungary could muster about 30,000 armed warriors in the 10th century. To put the total number at the time of the conquest UNDER 75,000 is simply obtuse, not even worth arguing with. Zigomer trubahin (talk) 22:55, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Later genetic influences

"Cumanians, Pechenegs, Jazones, Germans and other Western-European settlers" "Turks" etc.. Tatars and Russians not even mentioned.

I don't think there was too much blending with Tatars and Russians during their occupation. Tatars only destroyed the country and went away in a half year time, and Russians lived in secluded barracks. But probably there were some village girls seduced by horny soldiers... :) Zello 12:45, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

I am not at all an expert in this, but look what happened during the war in Yogoslavia a decade ago: Soldiers killed the male population and raped the women. This is I would call the real "basic instinct" and I think this might have happened when Tatars killed half of the Hu population in the 13th century: they raped the other half. I also heard about the lots of abortions made in Budapest hospitals in 1945 after the Soviet liberation... But this is only my opinion. I also agree we are very similar to our neghbours, but then it should be put this way - our faces are similar, our skin is of similar colour, etc. Genetics is very tricky, phenotype does not always reflect the genotype. --KIDB 13:20, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

Yes, you are absolutely right. Only we don't have any data... Zello 14:33, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

Conclusion: "Due to all these influences Magyars became genetically more or less similar to the inhabitants of the states neighbouring Hungary." This doensn't sound too scientific to me. If we are talking about genetic similarities, we should be using results from scientific research. --KIDB 12:07, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

There was a debate about the question on Hungarian prehistory talkpage in the recent past. There a guy brought datas of some scientific research to prove his claim. I have serious doubts but I'm not an expert in genetics. Here I only tried to take the edge of the original - certainly exaggerated - sentence until somebody do some research. Zello 12:41, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Genetics

Is this needed? Sounds funny. You know, there's a trend to nationalize ethnic hungarians in the surrounding countries of nowadays Hungary, by creating false sources and/or simply declare him/her as an ethnic local despite the facts - this sentence seems as a semi-nationalization of all the hungarian people. Really funny, altough it is true, but you know, then we could write this to any ethnic groups because mixed relations (forced or not) happened everywhere. The surrounding people became gnetically more or less similar to their neighbours, and they to their neighbours etc. etc. also. --VinceB 20:30, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

Yes, this happened everywhere and certainly other peoples should write about their genetical history also. If they don't write that's not our problem. The section contains a lot of info and you said yourself that they are true. Zello 02:47, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Ugric Peoples?

I don't think that is a good category. To say that there is an "Ugric People" is to reiterate an outdated and false assumption regarding a connection between linguistics and ethnicity. You know, the one that commonly gets repeated by anti-Finno-Ugricists who pretend that proponents of the Finno-Ugric theory are arguing for a common people when it is only and ever will be a linguistic theory. Its like calling Americans a Germanic people because the language, English, is classified as Germanic. --Stacey Doljack Borsody 14:43, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

Probably a better category name would be something like "Ugric-speaking peoples". I have the same disagreement with the "Finnic peoples" category too. --Stacey Doljack Borsody 15:30, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I see what you mean. No argument Andrew Dalby 16:21, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Blood type

It seems to me that this research only proves that blood types don't show anything about the origin of peoples. There was certaninly no mixing between Serbs and Spaniards or between Magyars and Greeks. I propose to delete - not because I'm against the claim that Magyars and neighbouring peoples are genetically similar but because this research didn't prove this. Zello 10:22, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

I concur. The cited web site also seems like research that has not been peer reviewed. Dpotop 13:26, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

In the recent edit of PANNONIAN: "According to one genetical research based on the blood types, the Magyars share 99% genetical similarity with Serbs, 97% with Greeks, 97% with Austrians, 97% with Albanians, 96% with Romanians, 96% with Bulgarians, 94% with Slovaks, 94% with Spanish, 93% with Polish, 91% with Turks, 91% with Czechs, etc. [4]"

I visited the quoted web page - it is not about genetics, it simply compares the ratios of different blood types in certain ethnic groups. I did not delete this new sentence, only changed the text accordingly, but I am still not certain if this is scientifically significant at all. Do these numbers mean that Spanish had more ganetic influence on Hungarians thna Poles did? I doubt, and I am still very sceptical about the whole paragraph. (I would be interested in reading results of real scientific studies, however.) --KIDB 13:26, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Well, I just thought that it is interesting research. And why Spanish people cannot be related to Hungarians and Serbs? Many different peoples settled in Spain during the Great Migrations and it was also ruled by Arabs for several centuries, so who knows who were main ancestors of Spanish people. PANONIAN (talk) 14:31, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

I can recommend you a book: "How to lie with statistics". If that research were true research, it would have been published (and peer reviewed in the process). Dpotop 17:10, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

But then, if you want some real data, take a look at this [5]. Dpotop 19:57, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Apparently, this issue has been extensively debated at [6] so I guess you might want to check the discussion and the research cited there.

Sweet! :) Dpotop 20:28, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

What ever. If Magyars do not want to be related with Serbs, it is their choice to believe in what they want to believe. These days it is not easy to convince even Montenegrins and Bosniaks about their Serb origin, so I can imagine how harder it would be with Magyars. Just a joke of course. :))) PANONIAN (talk) 22:05, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

No, this is not about not being similar to Serbs. It is quite obvious that Hungarians and Serbs must have a lot of genetic similarity for many reasons. We have lived in the same geographical area for more than 1000 years, there were significant migrations during the Ottoman occupation, and there were Serbs settled in Central Hungary in the 18th century. The only problem is that the research you quoted was done by amateurs and not by serious researchers--KIDB 07:31, 14 June 2006 (UTC).

Ditto. Dpotop 07:50, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Demographics

The article states that there are around 9.5 million Magyars in Hungary and cites the 2001 census as a source. In the table a precise figure of 9,416,015 is given. However, this figure is actually the number of Hungarian citizens (resident in Hungary at the time of the census) who described themselves as Magyar in the census. A further 546,315 "did not wish to answer". Almost certainly some of the latter are also Magyar. Further complicating the picture is the (estimated) several hundred thousand Roma in Hungary some of whom may have described themselves as Magyar, others as Roma, and others refused to answer. My point is that the precise figure cited in the table cannot be deduced from the census data. Other sources giving estimates of the Magyar population should be used.

The table claims that "more than half of Hungarians are Roman Catholic". This claim is unsourced and confusing (because it refers to Hungarians rather than Magyars. I would strongly contest this figure. I believe it is taken from census data for Hungary. Thus it refers to Hungarian citizens and not ethnic Hungarians (ie Magyars). In other words, it includes the Roma minority (which is more strongly Roman Catholic than the Magyar majority). In any case self-indentification as Roman Catholic in a census is not the same as being a practising (or even a lapsed) Roman Catholic. Unless someone can provide a verifiable source for the data, I will remove the percentages. Scott Moore 14:21, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Please don't remove the data. You are right that many of these people are not practising the religion regularly but these are the official census data, based on people's self-identification, and there is no better way to establish their number until the next census will use another method (probably). You can see that the strong majority of Romas identified him/herself as Magyars in the census - there are complicated reasons of this, but - again - better stick to the census data than delete everything or made uncertain calculations. Zello 15:17, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

The census data is considered official by the Hungarian government for 2001 and therefore is the best possible source for demographic data (until they perform another census). It isn't within the scope of Wikipedia to audit the answers or second-guess why some non-Magyar Hungarian citizen may have claimed themselves as Magyar or visa versa. This is really no different from any other census or the way people answer them. --Stacey Doljack Borsody 16:23, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Agreed. The uncertainties mentioned by Scott Moore are exactly why the article gives approximations rather than precise figures; still, the census is a verifiable source, the approximations in the article appear solidly based and are therefore helpful to readers. They shouldn't be removed unless an even better source can be found (which seems unlikely to me). Andrew Dalby 18:31, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] An idea

I was thinking, if the opening paragraph in this article says, "In English they are more often called Hungarians", shouldn't this page be moved to Hungarian people? I know the term "Hungarian" in English had a wider meaning, but not anymore. I doubt you'd find many ethnic Romanians who call themselves Hungarians. All inhabitants of the Persian Empire were historically called "Persians", but today that's only the name for ethnic Persians, which account 51% of Iran's population. What do other people think? —Khoikhoi 03:00, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

A similar point has been discussed already, see Magyars vs. Hungarians above. KissL 14:32, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

In the previous discussion I tried to explain that for an English-speaker (or at least an American), there is no ambiguity in what Hungarian means. My Magyar relatives never say they are Magyar in English nor do my Slovak relatives (who came from Miskolc) say they are Hungarian in English. Nor will a schoolchild know to look up Magyar for Hungarian ethnic group. Khoikhoi points out that semantics can and do shift. Educate about the semantic shift in the articles, not the titles. I wonder, is Magyar used in other language Wikipedias where the language uses the "Hungar/Ongr" name? --Stacey Doljack Borsody 18:18, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Hmmm...I'm not sure. From reading the discussion above, it appears that a minority of users seem to support the current title. If I made a requested move, would you guys vote? I recall that there was some objections when an admin moved Republic of Moldova to Moldova, because in Romanian the region of Moldavia is called Moldova. In English however the most common meaning is the country. Anyways, do you think we should re-visit the suggestion of the move? —Khoikhoi 05:14, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

We can re-visit it. A vote would maybe attract more opinions and thus give us a clearer view. I personally think that the current title doesn't hurt much – those schoolchildren looking for the Hungarians will end up here in no time –, but Hungarian people or Hungarians would be a better title. I'm not convinced by Juro's assertion that expert texts use the name Magyars, because his opinion may well be biased by the fact that in Slovak, this semantic shift hasn't gone nearly as far as in English. KissL 10:00, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

See e.g. the links presented in the old discussion and the old discussion, it is even used in non-expert texts. And I repeat for the nth time, this has nothing to do with Slovak. Juro 10:03, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

I was interested by Sborsody's last question above (is Magyar used in other language Wikipedias where the language uses the "Hungar/Ongr" name?). In some Wikipedias, 'Magyars' or the equivalent is treated very briefly, just as a historical term, the name for the invaders of the Pannonian plains in medieval times. For example, Bulgarian; Catalan. In others (just as in English at present) 'Magyars' is the heading for a long article about the Hungarian people, medieval and modern. For example, Czech and German. I haven't yet come across a Wikipedia that has separate articles for "Hungarians" and "Magyars", but maybe I just haven't looked far enough yet. Andrew Dalby 11:53, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Requested move

[edit] Regions with significant populations

What parts of Africa or Asia would have any significant populations of Hungarians? I'd always thought the only Europeans who live in Africa are the British (in South Africa, Zimbabwe), some French (in Morocco), and the Spanish (in the west African islands). In Asia, there are Russians (in Asian Russia, the "-stans", and some in China) and the Portuguese (in Macau). Where are the Hungarians in Africa or Asia? Le Anh-Huy 06:39, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

Few people went to South-Africa in the 1980s, I don't think there is any Hungarian community anywhere else. Zello 20:03, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Parts cut out

This increase was partly due to the fact that non-Magyar population of the Kingdom was subjected to Magyarisation in the period between 1867 (the Ausgleich) and World War I.

"Magyarization" was never forced, just suggested, without --> "" <-- these. It was an answer to Panslavism, wich faned the flames of slavic nationalism. In fact a step against a possible "inland ethnic civil war".

== Later genetic influences ==

Besides the various peoples mentioned above, who mixed with the Magyars during their long way to and at their arrival in Hungary, the Magyars also include a genetic input from other peoples settled in this territory after the arrival of the Magyars, for example the Cumanians, Pechenegs, Jazones, Germans and other Western-European settlers in the Middle Ages. Romanians and Slovaks have lived together and blended with Magyars since early medieval times. Turks who occupied the central part of present-day Hungary from c. 1541 to c. 1699 and especially the various nations (Germans, Slovaks, Serbs, Croats and others), that settled depopulated territories after the departure of the Turks in the 18th century all added their important contribution in composing the modern Hungarian nation. Both Jewish and Roma (Gypsy) minorities have been living in Hungary since the Middle Ages. Due to all these influences Magyars became genetically more or less similar to the inhabitants of the states neighbouring Hungary.

If it would be true, than the Kingdom of Hungary wouldn't be multiethnic. They lived next to each other in peace. Mainly. --VinceB 13:18, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

I strongly disagree. First, Magyarisation was imposed by law and other administrative acts. Moreover, it was sometimes violent due to the assistance of police. But what is more important, how can you explain all those huge changes in the demographic structure if you do not take magyarisation into account? Second, the two models (multi-ethnic society and melting pot) are just ideal types and they never exist in they pure form (probably except for the apartheid regime). Intermarriage in the Kingdom of Hungary can be proved by numerous genealogies of noble and burgher families. And the differences between present-day Hungarians and their neighbors are really minor (this is true for most European countries, since 80% of the variance can be explained by the palaeolithic distribution of population and only 20% by later migrations). For example, the haplotype HG16 was found only in 3% of the Hungarian sample. To conclude, I do not see any reason to erase these two sections as you suggested. Instead, I think that a similar section should be included in the articles about other European nations. Tankred 15:42, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

Abt 1.5 million ppl migrated from the KoH before WWI, nearly all were minorities.

It has an other reading also: the neighbours became similar to hungarians by genetics, because of mixed marriages, wich is not shown. Quite one sided this is, and I've never ever read such a ridiculous paragraph. Genetcally everybody (you and me also) 90-97% similar to a chimp also. :) --VinceB 10:13, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

Please, do not make ridiculous remarks. You know very well that I discussed genetic variance between people. Tankred 15:10, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

The last sentence about genetics I think quite dubious. I saw different genetical studies and the only thing I accepted as a conclusion that you can prove virtually everything with studies like that and also the opposite one. But the paragraph contains factually correct historical informations and it's sure that Magyars mixed with these people in the course of history. Zello 11:10, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

I agree that those studies are not perfect because the sample is usually too small. I do not cite this research in the article, but I have just used it here to illustrate why a paragraph about "later influences" should not be erased. Tankred 15:10, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

Zello, please don't put back without a consensus. I got my problems written down here, above. --VinceB 11:19, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

Actually there was consensus about the paragraph, and until you can prove that there was no intermarriage between Magyars and other people (that's impossible) the paragraph is factually correct. Zello 11:28, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

Nope, instead of becoming slavic, they became hungarian. --VinceB 14:56, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Requested move: Hungarian people --> Hungarians

[edit] NPOV formulation about some historians' claims

In the subsection History after 900 at some point it is stated that:

• Some historians support the theory that the Magyars' percentage in the Carpathian Basin was at an almost constant 80% during the Middle Ages...
• Some Slovak and Romanian historians tend to emphasise the multi-ethnic nature of the Kingdom even in the Middle Ages and argue that the drastic change in the ethnic structure hypothesized by Hungarian historians in fact did not occur.

In my opinion this formulation, although it presents both theories as it should, it is not NPOV. In this form it implies that some historians from all over the world agree with the first statement, while only some historians from only two countries agree with the second statement. I therefore think that we should either say:

• "Some Hungarian historians support..." and "Some Slovak and Romanian historians tend to..." (version that I proposed but was reverted by User:Korossyl)

or

• eliminate nationalities from both statements and only keep "Some historians..." in both cases. Alexrap 19:06, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

Hi Alexrap.
I understand what you're saying: as the article stood before, it DID imply that "some historians from all over the world agree with the first statement, while only some historians from only two countries agree with the second statement." However, I do not believe that this is a matter of POV or NPOV -- it's a matter of whether the implication is true or not. Are you absolutely sure that it is not the case that the 80% theory is widely accepted, and that only some historians dispute it? For that matter, if only Hungarian historians accept the 80% theory and only Romanian and Slovak historians accept the multi-ethnic theory, then what is the widely held view outside of these (biased) circles?
It's unfortunate that the original wording had not sources cited; I'd really like to see some. If none are available, then we should work out a compromise.
Korossyl 00:28, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

As you also say, at the moment there is no reference given for that implication (so we should somehow eliminate it). The truth is that it is impossible to know exactly what happened in those time (unfortunately history is not maths), so everyone is free to speculate anything. As far as I know, the "widely held view" (at least in Transylvania) is the multi-ethnic one, but since the subject is quite sensitive, my opinion is that Wikipedia should just present the two distinct views (without implying anything). Alexrap 15:18, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

Sorry for the delay! It's a real shame about the lack of sources, and I'm in no position to try to find any. I'm going to try to change the wording just a bit, so let me know what you think. Korossyl 06:39, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

I guess that your new formulation is fairly NPOV, so, in my opinion, we should keep it. Alexrap 12:23, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Viking (Varangian) neighbours

---

Already briefly discussed, and edited, was the mention of Norman/Viking/Varangian neighbours of the Magyars. Vikings it is, but that doesn't seem right at all: I. Vikings weren't a people, but a Scandinavian warrior class (raiders, explorers, traders) and the use of that name is commonly restricted to the Norsemen/Normans who raided and invaded Western Europe [[7]]; II. Varangian is the appropriate term for the Scandinavian enterprises in Eastern Europe [[8]], but, again, the Varangians aren't a people.

Since the Varangians were the rapidly assimilating ruling class of the Slav peoples of future Russia, I think the phrase 'Vikings and the eastern Slavs' should be changed into something like 'the emerging Varangian (Russian?) nation (state?) and other eastern Slavs' (eastern Slav groups). 24.132.233.114 00:56, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Numbers

An unregistered user changed the number of Hungarians currently living in Hungary from 9,416,015 (in 2001) to 10,061,000 (in 2007), without updating the reference for this number. The reference from the article still says 9,416,015 and the new number does not seem to be based on any source whatsoever. Could someone provide the reference for the new 2007 number? Some days ago, as I couldn't find a new reference, I rewrote the 2001 number (as the only sourced number we have), but User:Öcsi reverted my edit. Öcsi, no, I'm not User:Bonaparte and I really hope that you won't start behaving like him. Alexrap 13:16, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, I thought you were him because he always reduces the numbers of Hungarians in every article (once he wrote that there oly living 8.5 Million Hungarians in H; maybe in his dreams :). I will change my edit to 9.5-9.6 Million Hungarians, because the official census only counted 9.7 Mio people out of 10.1 Mio living in H. --Öcsi 23:45, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

I see that although you said you will, you still haven't changed your edit. The only official source still says 9,416,015. Alexrap 13:52, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

You should buy glasses. I have changed it, but not in the Infobox. Now it's done. Nevertheless, I have changed my edit.--Öcsi 14:15, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

There is no need for sarcastic jokes. The reality is that you hadn't changed your edit from the infobox and I didn't need glasses to see that. Also, I cannot understand why you wrote 9.5-9.6 million if the Hungarian 2001 Census recorded 9.4 million and since then the population has decreased, rather than increased. Also, you still haven't corrected the total number from the infobox, which should be 14.5 million, as it was before the unsourced edits. Alexrap 14:34, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Because it's 15 Million and the 2001 census didn't recorded everyone (myself included). Do you understand? --Öcsi 14:40, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Now, that's a great argument. Well done! Things are simple: can you reference the 9.5-9.6 and the 15 million numbers? If you can, please do so. If not, try to keep this article consistent with its own sources. And remember that your own "original research" is not a valid reference. Alexrap 14:59, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Here you have one: [9]. You can search other ones. But if you can't bring any reference which proves that the 400.000 not registrated Hu citizens aren't Hungarians then your argumentation has no validity too. --Öcsi 15:20, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

You are confusing things:

1) The reference you just gave refers to Hungarian language speakers, which is not the same thing with Hungarians. There are many Romas, Jews, Germans etc. in Hungary that speak Hungarian but are not Hungarians. Also, the reference is based on data from 1997. Unfortunately, Hungary's population has been decreasing since 1997, so even the Hungarian speakers are probably less than 15 million now.

2) I have no idea what 400,000 you are talking about. The Census results are pretty clear. Anything else is just original research. Alexrap 15:39, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

You have obviously not read the census datas. Please read them again. --Öcsi 15:41, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

The 2001 Census data says that 9,416,045 Hungarians were living in Hungary in 2001. As I said, anything else is just original research. Are there any other comments from other users, as this discussion is becoming pointless, since your are trying hard not to understand what I'm saying? Alexrap 15:46, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Are you stupid? What's about the section "Didn't want to answer"? --Öcsi 15:48, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Not that you deserve an answer, but considering that the ones who didn't want to answer are Hungarians is nothing by OR. And if we are to make any sort of OR, we could say that they are probably anything but Hungarians. As there is no reason whatsoever for someone in any country not to declare the ethnicity that is a large majority. Alexrap 15:54, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

I think that we should always use official census numbers for demographic data. It seems to me that Alex is right with the 9,4 million number. Although no census is perfect and there were certainly mistakes we don't have any better source. Zello 17:12, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Image

I want to know what exactly is depicted in the image at right and the year of the scene depicted. Specifically, I want to know if one of the kings pictured is supposed to be Berengar I of Italy, the first west European ruler to meet the invading Magyars (and be defeated by them). I am expanding that article and am looking for a usable image to spruce it up. Srnec 05:57, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

You mean the seated king at the left? Looks like it could be Svatopluk of Moravia being offered a white horse in exchange for "land and water". --Stacey Doljack Borsody 16:17, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

Okay. The picture portrays many scenes, though. Is any of them of Berengar? Srnec 20:22, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] "related groups" info removed from infobox

For dedicated editors of this page: The "Related Groups" info was removed from all {{Infobox Ethnic group}} infoboxes. Comments may be left on the Ethnic groups talk page. Ling.Nut 23:40, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Turkic people?

Are they a Turkic people? The Magyar horse riding skills makes me think so, but I don't know for sure Tourskin 23:45, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

I guess there are more things to make a Turkic people...

On the other hand, can you imagine how many of them cannot ride the horse at all? :)

--peyerk 20:18, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

It is an important point there... The "official" history of Magyars is written here in the article. This theory is mainly funded by Habsurg, later Soviet politics, mainly to integrate Hungarians to European culture. However, I believe in the "unofficial" version, which is reflected in our Myths, folk tales, food (goulash, for example), the ancient writing (rovasiras), the early Christianity differing from Judeo-Christianity, and recently getting prooven by genetical studies. This theory is saying Magyars are descendants of Scythians - Huns - Avars, where none of these nations were homogenous. Scythians are from SOUTH of Ural (answering to a talk box above) where they met Ugric nations and had exchanged language. Coming back to your question, yes we have a lot of common with Turks, (and Mongols, and other horseriding nations) as they are also derived from Scythians. I firmly believe there will be a major breakthrough in the knowledge we know from the origin of this people, giving us a lot of intersting discussion. Abdulka 16:34, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

Abdulka, there are some linguists who study a phenomenon known as language shift. There are certain known mechanisms of how it occurs. Sometimes a larger population can shift their language to the language spoken by the smaller elite or the smaller elite shifts their language to that of the general populace. Take for example in England, the Norman rulers spoke French and this had a great influence upon the English of the common man (a minority influencing the majority). On the flip side of this the Turkic Bulgar rulers stopped speaking Turkic and adopted Slavic of the people they ruled over (the majority influencing the minority). When we talk about how Magyars ended up with an Ugric language we need to think about language shift. The questions are many and the answers are not easy to find since there isn't a lot of data to work with. Both the "official" and "unofficial" theories you mention are possible but they cannot be proven without an investigation of language shift in proto-Magyars. The reason the Finno-Ugric "official" theory tends to be more accepted is precisely due to the thought that it is easier and faster for a Turkic-speaking and/or Iranic-speaking elite to change over to the Ugric of the majority than it is for the minority speakers to influence the majority. This kind of language shift tends to be more common. For the minority to change the language of a majority like in England, it takes a longer amount of time and still it is clear that English is Germanic and not a Romance language. --Stacey Doljack Borsody 17:38, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

One problem is that language shift occurs when there is a majority or an elite giving their language to the minority or the ruled. In our case the ugric people originally speaking proto-Hungarian were neither an elite nor a majority.

--peyerk 09:23, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

As I said above, there isn't enough data to answer all the questions. There is a big black hole of information which makes it impossible for you to make such a claim that the Ugric speakers did not have a majority as it makes it impossible for me to obtain solid support that they were a majority. All that can be done is to make reference to common sense (such as why would a people not be a majority who live in a region so near their theoretical Urheimat?) and to make attempts to extrapolate the data from recent genetic and older anthropological discoveries on Conquest-era graves showing a clear difference between the smaller ruling class and the larger population (despite the fact that graves don't show language). --Stacey Doljack Borsody 14:55, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

"it is easier and faster for a Turkic-speaking and/or Iranic-speaking elite to change over to the Ugric of the majority than it is for the minority speakers to influence the majority."

Why is that? This sort of language shift driven by a small elite of new rulers happened in the much larger Turkey (and in Azerbaidjan) in the course of - at the most - just one or two centuries.

[edit] Which side of the Urals?

I was under the impression that Ugric-speaking people were always on the western side of the Urals while this article states that the earliest Finno-Ugric settlements were on the eastern side. As far as I know from Russian history, Ob-Ugrics were pushed to the eastern side only after confrontation with the growing Russian empire. Taking a look at the Finno-Ugric languages article I see no mention about the eastern side. Someone want to clarify? --Stacey Doljack Borsody 17:04, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Very good point, this is where the "artificial" history is not working. It is most probably SOUTH (though there is no firm evidence so far). Pls refer to my views in "Turkic people?" Abdulka 16:37, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

I believe the commonly held scientific view is that proto-Magyars moved south (from the western side) and that they encountered Iranic-speaking people. This isn't part of "artificial" history. Moreover, the Iranic influence (Scythians, etc.) extends to other Finno-Ugric groups too, not just proto-Magyars. But I was asking about the earliest Finno-Ugric settlements mentioned in the article, not proto-Magyars. --Stacey Doljack Borsody 17:02, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Regional Population

The whole regional population "map" is all screwed up. You have western countries (Germany) listed under eastern, and eastern not listed under eastern (serbia, romania etc.). You also have Turkey listed under Africa instead of Eurasia. I would reorganize all these myself, but being a bit of a newbie to Wiki editing, I took one look at the way it's organized on the editing page, and was lost lol. JanderVK

[edit] name

The first sentence of the lead says. " Hungarians (Hungarian: Magyarok) or Magyars[11] are an ethnic group primarily associated with Hungary." The infobox uses Hungarians (Magyarok), so all the main article concent uses the term "Hungarians", while the article uses Hungarian people. This looks extremely silly, that even the bolded intro in the lead won't match the title, one or the other should be changed so they at least match and consistent within the most important parts of the article (title, lead, infobox). Hobartimus 16:29, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Editing

This article needs to be edited by someone with a native or near-native level of English. For a start, I suggest correcting the introductory section as follows:

"Magyars have been the main inhabitants of the Kingdom of Hungary that existed through most of the second millennium. After the Treaty of Trianon Magyars have become minority inhabitants on the territory of..." changed to "Magyars were the main inhabitants of the Kingdom of Hungary that existed through most of the second millennium. After the Treaty of Trianon, Magyars became minority inhabitants on the territory of..."

"but unlike the Magyars living within the former Kingdom of Hungary, only a minority of these preserves the Hungarian language and tradition." changed to "but, unlike the Magyars living in areas that were formerly part of the Kingdom of Hungary, only a minority of these retains the Hungarian language and traditions" "There was a referendum in Hungary in December 2004 on whether to grant Hungarian citizenship to Magyars living outside Hungary's borders (i.e. without requiring a permanent residence in Hungary). The referendum failed due to the insufficient voter turnout, and caused some recruitment of the local nationalist movements and parties in the surrounding countries." Well, this is so poorly written, that it is not fully comprehensible. Indeed, I do not see the justification for placing this text in the introduction; it refers to a failed referendum that was of minor political import. I suggest removing or, at the very least, changing to: "Hungary held a referendum in December 2004 on whether to grant Hungarian citizenship to Magyars living outside Hungary's borders. The referendum failed due to the insufficient voter turnout." I have already removed the gibberish about recruitment (possibly the author meant 'resentment'). Scott Moore 12:57, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Number of Hungarians in Hungary

I have changed the numbers in the Infobox. I have good reason to do it, this is not some nationalistic blowing up numbers. Here comes the reasoning:

I am using the same census data as used before: which was used as a reference to the old numbers, however note, that in the 2001 data there are two entries "Did not wish to answer" and "Unknown" amounting together for 570,537 counts.

It is safe an prudent to assume, that of those the same ratio is ethnic Hungarian, as is (a) the ratio of them among the declared ethnicities; In fact, of course, it could happen, that a certain minority does not declare more often, than ethnic Hungarians, however, whether it's this way or not can be verified well by (b) the ratio of ethnic Hungarians of the 1990 data (which did not have those categories, so everyone had to declare. Actually, it's methodologically more correct to use the 1990 ratio, but I am going to use the smaller ratio to be diligent, so that by no means can anyone claim I'm blowing up numbers:

Let H the number of declared ethnic Hungarians in 2001, so H = 9,416,045.

Let U the number of "Unknown" and "Did not answer", then U = 570,537.

Let R_2001 the ratio of ethnic Hungarians within the declared ethnicities, then R_2001 = 9,416,045 / 9,734,436 = 96.73%.

Let R_1990 the ratio of ethnic Hungarians within the inhabitants of Hungary, then R_1990 = 10,142,072 / 10,374,823 = 97.94%.

Then HA, the number more close to the actual number of ethnic Hungarians in Hungary according to the 2001 census data is HA = H + min{R_2001 * U, R_1990 * U} = 9,416,045 + min{551,876; 558,795} = 9,967,921.

I do believe, that noone can fight these numbers, but I'm open for discussion. Please do not revert them without discussion! Szabi 17:03, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

It's not about "fighting numbers", but your "calculations" are very much original research, which is against Wikipedia policy and practice. I'm quite surprised that no Hungarian editor spotted it yet. I'm not going to get involved into this though, but it should be a matter of principle. Just another point: very funny the way you ask people not to do what you just did, i.e. changing the article before engaging into a discussion. Alexrap 12:31, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Hi Alex! My numbers are not original research! I'll cite Wikipedia's entry on O.R.: "Original Reasearch is research that is not exclusively based on a summary, review or synthesis of earlier publications on the subject of research. The purpose of the original research is to produce new knowledge, rather than to present the existing knowledge in a new form (e.g., summarized or classified).".

Now, what I did was exactly summary, review and synthesis, presenting existing knowledge (census data) in a different form (I reviewed the data, and synthetised the "did not wish to answer" fraction into the other data in a diligent way). I did not go out and count the people, but presented the data in a more full summary (previous version of the article just disregarded the information contained in the "did not answer" etc. data line).

I am confident (see quotation above) that what I did was according to Wikipedia principles and not violating them, however I'm very open for discussions about that as well.

At the same time, I do admit, that your last remark has validity, this request of mine sounds somewhat out of place. However, what do you do, if you post a Talk topic and no-one answers? (Happened to me before, true though, with a less active article) -- I think what I did was not to bold: I did not dodgily change data, but explained in detail what I did and why I did it. Szabi 16:06, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Looking more closely at WP:NOR, you'll find the following: "An article or section of an article that relies on a primary source should (1) only make descriptive claims, the accuracy of which is easily verifiable by any reasonable, educated person without specialist knowledge, and (2) make no analytic, synthetic, interpretive, explanatory, or evaluative claims" (emphasis added). This, together with the fact that census results are explicitly defined as primary sources in the preceding paragraph, means Alex is right that your numbers, although most probably correct, are OR as long as no secondary source with the same interpretation of the census results can be presented. Since, however, your interpretation is correct, it shouldn't pose a huge problem to find one, in which case it can be used as reference. KissL 16:16, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Obviously any census that has an unresolved "did not wish to answer" in them should never be used as hard data no matter how recent. If next time 20-30-50 percent won't bother to answer, like they don't bother to vote and such you propose to write 5 million as the correct number? If these numbers get challanged we will have to use the 1990 census data which didn't have the "no answer" option, as the most recent reliable data. No answer means that those ppl were simply left out from that part of the census, so in that regard(about ethnicity) it was only a partial census with partial results. These partial results cannot be misrepresented as if they were correct final numbers. Hobartimus 17:34, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Hungary

Hungary 9,967,921  (2001) 

please look at hungary article for 2007 count. Mallerd 17:21, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

I guess you are replying to my entry on the talk page (I don't understand why you created a new section then). The article says 9.4mn (that's the same number which stood in the info box before my calculation) and states the 2007 year next to it. However, the reference given at the bottom will lead to numbers featuring 2001! The same numbers I used.

I really do believe, that the given year (2007) is wrong, and that there has not been a census (they used to be every 10 years). Also the given reference is suggesting the wrongness of the 2007 year. Even if new numbers come out, a calculation similar to given above is more diligent than using the raw numbers declared Hungarian.

Thanks for pointing out, that the number in the main article was wrong. I'll correct that. Szabi 12:43, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

Ah sorry didn't see your section ;) nice calculation :O Mallerd 22:18, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] picture of important hungarians

I wonder that there is no picture of Ferenc Puskas at the top of the infobox. He is that symbol for hungarian football. --89.182.130.134 17:16, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Subgroups

I think this article could be improved by having more written about the Hungarian subgroups. The Szekely are mentioned somewhat in passing, the Jasz and Csango only in the 'See also' section, and nothing about the Paloc, Matyo, and őrs (which I saw in some anthropological study once mentioning the highest incidence of "original" Magyar DNA existed amongst them. Like http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?db=pubmed&list_uids=8935316&cmd=Retrieve&indexed=google I think). --Stacey Doljack Borsody 01:46, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Who's Finno-Ugric theory?

Hungarian prehistory is being fixed up so it is no longer a POV fork. I noticed, in reviewing the "mainstream" Finno-Ugric theory presented in this article, that what is written is just as bad as the POV fork. It claims things like a Western Siberian/East of the Urals urheimat for Finno-Ugric without citation when "mainstream" Finno-Ugricists would say it was on the western side of the Urals. This page will need a lot of fixing up as well. --Stacey Doljack Borsody (talk) 23:09, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

This statement contradicts Finno-Ugric languages. Is this claim based upon Russian archeology?

During the fourth millennium BC, some of the earliest settlements of the Finno-Ugric-speaking peoples were situated east of the Ural Mountains, where they hunted and fished.

This statement also needs sourcing. I'm assuming the intent here is to talk about the ancient Iranic influence upon the Magyar language. If so, it is not difficult to find a source, but I'm pretty sure no one knows which Iranic group was the influence so who is saying it was Sarmatians?

During the following centuries, the proto-Magyars continued to live in the wood-steppes and steppes southeast of the Ural Mountains, strongly influenced by their immediate neighbours, the ancient Sarmatians.

--Stacey Doljack Borsody (talk) 23:17, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

Who says this? The Middle-Volga region is regarded as the Finno-Ugric language urheimat. Why would Magyars have to have moved there?

In the fourth and fifth centuries AD, the proto-Magyars moved to the west of the Ural Mountains to the area between the southern Ural Mountains and the Volga River known as Bashkiria (Bashkortostan).

Only Constantine wrote about Levedia and he didn't put it between the Volga, Don, and Donets...

In the early eighth century, some of the proto-Magyars moved to the Don River to an area between the Volga, Don and the Seversky Donets rivers called Levedia.

--Stacey Doljack Borsody (talk) 23:26, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Picture of important Hungarians

Is really Mathias Corvinus an ethnic Hungarian ? How can you put him there ? He was half Romanian, half Hungarian, it is all known. More, by paternal side, which one can say it's most important, he was Romanian. So, at least it is not its place here, where you must put the most representative ethnic Hungarians ! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Madalinfocsa (talk • contribs) 12:51, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

One of his grandparants was a Wallachian, who came to Hungary and received land there so he was 25% Wallachian 75% Hungarian. Hobartimus (talk) 15:27, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

In this case some tags are needed, because some aspects are controversial or unbalanced in favor of certain viewpoints, because some portions does not cite any references or sources and also because some editor User:Dahn insists ethnicity is a subjective matter and that this kind of tags are absolutely needed in articles which are adressing to the ethnic group of a specific population.Example is the article romanians. I'm just following his example Adrianzax (talk) 17:46, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Oh I see, you have some dispute on the Romanians page and now you try to escalate it here without a resolution to your original dispute. No thanks. Also if you think you will gain an advantage 'there' by editing 'here' that's highly unlikely. You will only gain a disadvantage if more people read your contributions and find out why certain sources cannot be trusted according to you. Hobartimus (talk) 22:42, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Religion

I don't know what the numbers in the infobox refer to (no citations), but it seems they're about Hungary itself, which is misleading - not all Hungarian citizens are Magyars (arguably Hungarian Jews, for instance), and certainly not all Hungarians live in Hungary. Better to put something like "Roman Catholic, Protestant (mainly Reformed, Lutheran, Unitarian), Unaffiliated". Biruitorul (talk) 22:32, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Onogurs

Whilst the intro is good, it is a little confusing. It states that On-ogur derives means ten tribes. Did this stem from the Western Gokturk khanate, the Khazar khanate or the 10 Magyar tribes ? Hxseek (talk) 04:35, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Finno-Ugric Origin dispute

User:Wikinist is hellbent on changing the wording of 'the most widely-accepted theory [of a common Finno-Ugric origin' to 'the traditional theory'. While his source contesting the theory should be given space in the article, I think the wording he is sticking to makes the academically most universally accepted origin theory appear unlikely. I think 'most widely-accepted' should stay. I'd like to ask the input of third parties on this one. Caius (talk) 07:52, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

I concur with Caius Hxseek (talk) 05:40, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

I concur, "widely-accepted" is fine, it would be nice to have a clear reference that says just that from a reliable source to put this issue completely to rest. man with one red shoe (talk) 06:16, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Okay, I re-worded things and tried to give some sources. If someone could find better sources, I'd be glad if they added them. Caius (talk) 17:23, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

The article contradicts itself. Lets see:

1: Finno-Ugric peoples have (present tense, so currently) a common origin. Origin means by default the origin of population.

=> Modern Finno-Ugric peoples are genetically alike.

=> There is a genetical continuity between the present F-U speakers and those who brought the language.

However, the article also says "Modern Hungarian-speaking populations seem to be specifically European, and the results demonstrate that significant genetic differences exist between the ancient and recent Hungarian-speaking populations, and no genetic continuity is seen."

The upper claim is a historical view, based on a belief that language always tells about ancerstors. The latter is of an actual science. If origin of language is meant, it should be told. While the Finno-Ugric languages have obviously common roots, the common origin of populations speaking F-U languages is pseudoscientist. But you are of course not meaning this, so maybe you should clarify the article?

Wikinist (talk) 22:32, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

You are absolutely right. Since we have two seperate sources referring to the same thing (DNA research), and one says 'no genetic continuity is seen' and the other says '13% retain the uralic genes', I will amend the article accordingly, stating both opinions, and referencing both sources. I hope that's all right with you. Caius (talk) 11:09, 21 May 2008 (UTC)