Hungarian-Mesopotamian Dictionary (HMD)

ALFRÉD TÓTH : HUNGARIAN-MESOPOTAMIAN DICTIONARY (HMD)
Proto-Finno-Ugric (Proto-Finno-Permic, Proto-Ugric):
2500 B.C.
Proto-Ugric (Proto-Hungarian, Proto-Obugric):
1500 B.C.
Since our oldest readable Sumerian texts are from the so-called Fāra period, i.e. from the 27th
century B.C., Sumerian is almost contemporaneous to Proto-Finno-Ugric. Since Akkadian, precisely
Old Babylonian, is testified from the 23rd century B.C. (Sargon of Akkad) and since the same is true for
his close relative, Rhaetic (cf. Brunner and Tóth 1987) 1 , these languages are also contemporaneous with
both Sumerian and Proto-Finno-Ugric. Since our hypothesis is that Hungarian goes back to Sumerian,
the objection that we do not have older Sumerian texts, is of no importance (no Indo-Europeanist is
forced to go further back from Proto-Indo-European to Nostratic). It is of no importance either, that
“we see Sumerian only through the glasses of Akkadian”, i.e. possibly distorted by Akkadian phonetics,
as Edzard (2003) remarked, because no linguist would deal with Sumerian if it would be worthless
because of this possible distortion. And what concerns the further comparison of Hungarian via Proto-
Ugric, Proto-Finno-Ugric and Proto-Uralic with Proto-Altaic, there is no problem either, because in
these cases we compare proto-forms with proto-forms, i.e. reconstructions that have already been
approved by traditional linguists.
The following etymological part of the present book will show entry by entry how the Sumerian
phonemes correspond to the phonemes of the proto-languages on the one side and to the phonemes of
Hungarian on the other side. Generally, it is to say that there is much more deviance between
Hungarian and Proto-Ugric than between Hungarian and Sumerian. The main reason is that Finno-
Ugrists tend to prefer Vogul (Mansi) and Ostyak (Khanty) forms if they deviate from Hungarian, and
since it seems that the Ob-Ugric languages are not or not directly related to Hungarian, the result is in
many cases a Proto-Ugric form that does not fit to the Hungarian word and thus ad hoc sound-laws in
order to urge the Hungarian form in the Vogul-Ostyak Procrustes bed. On the other side, if a
reconstruction is not or not primarily based on Hungarian and Vogul and/or Ostyak, but also at least
on one Finno-Permic form, than the reconstructed proto-form is always much closer to the Sumerian
word. It can also generally be observed that the Sumerian and the Hungarian consonants fit much
better to one another than the vowels of both languages do, most of all the velar vowels. The reason is
clear: Sumerian, Akkadian and Rhaetic do not possess a phonem /o/, so a Hungarian dark vowel can
originate in a Sumerian, Akkadian or Rhaetic /a/ or /u/. Generally, again, Sumerian fits in his vowels
system better to Hungarian than Akkadian and Rhaetic do, because in Sumerian, but not in Akkadian
and Rhaetic (because of their apophony) there are traces of vowel harmony that are, as well known,
fully developed in Hungarian.
And once again generally: By comparing modern Hungarian words with Sumerian, Akkadian and
Rhaetic words from Old Babylonian time via intermediary reconstructed proto-forms, one realizes that
not the phonetical but the semantical part of reconstruction or comparison is the big problem.
Traditional linguists who reconstruct proto-forms from modern forms tacitly assume that the older a
word is traced back, the simpler its meaning must be. But Sumerian shows quite the opposite. In most
cases it is like that: The older a word is, there more specific (and not general) a meaning of a word gets.
Phylogenetically, the concrete item is primordial, the abstract one comes later. For example, the
Hungarian word for “ham from a pig’s back”: top originates in Sumerian dub whose meaning is “knee”
(because both the back and the knee are rounded). Yet, the reconstructed Proto-Finno-Ugric form
*tuppз gives as meaning “loin” which is more abstract than “ham” or “knee/back”.
1 As I have already pointed out in the Preface, for bibliographical information I refer to my “Etymological Dictionary of
Hungarian” (EDH).
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