Sumerian: A Uralic Language

[Ikutiera]

In the nineteenth century, Sumerian was long believed to be related to Ural-Altaic languages, but the idea was eventually discarded mainly because of negative criticism received from specialists in comparative Finno-Ugric studies. Since then, the matter has been considered closed and has become a taboo in Assyriology. However, systematic scrutiny of Sumerian vocabulary reveals that its entire central core - more than 1700 basic words and morphemes - can be successfully matched with Uralic etyma. The regularity of the phonological changes observable in the compared items and the overall parallelism of the Sumerian and Uralic grammatical systems definitively establish Sumerian as a Uralic language. Recognition of this fact opens up important new perspectives, which will be briefly outlined and discussed.

RAI 53

Sumerian: A Uralic Language - Human Biodiversity Forum

Simo Parpola - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[Marcus Marulus]

Sumér-magyar rokonság

Sumér-magyar rokonság

[Kernunnos]

I ever kept asking myself, if we europeans have shown so much progress in art and sciences for centuries, why are we so conspicously absent from the canonical set of first civilizations?

Perhaps it isn't so true ... I'm not saying Kemp like people are right, since he is clearly a superficial writer that does more damage than anything else to the reutation of europan peoples.


But I don't swallow this idea of a primitive world being introduced into civilization by non-europeans, at least as a whole.

Some of us were part of the inception of civilization.

After all in continental Europe there was an abundance of timber, so there was no such urgent need to make stone buildings ...

[Marcus Marulus]

Originally Posted by Breha

I ever kept asking myself, if we europeans have shown so much progress in art and sciences for centuries, why are we so conspicously absent from the canonical set of first civilizations?

Perhaps it isn't so true ... I'm not saying Kemp like people are right, since he is clearly a superficial writer that does more damage than anything else to the reutation of europan peoples.


But I don't swallow this idea of a primitive world being introduced into civilization by non-europeans, at least as a whole.

Some of us were part of the inception of civilization.

After all in continental Europe there was an abundance of timber, so there was no such urgent need to make stone buildings ...

Having accepted some elements of civilization from the outside is not necessarily something to be ashamed of. In our own individual lives we often acquire knowledge from others.

And there are some theories about civilizations that existed long ago, not only in Europe, but also in the rest of the world, cultures that vanished long ago, leaving almost no trace. The populations which were carriers of those civilizations degraded to the status of "savages". The so-called primitives wouldn't be primitives at all in that optic, but descandants of ancient civilized peoples which, under God knows what circumstances, abandoned civilization (maybe it required too much effort to uphold it?)

One of those vanished civilizations would be the European megalith culture.

But these are mere conjectures...

[Loorberitega Pärjatu]

It's so much just Sumer-Hungarian, it remains on the level of speculations anyway...

[Balazs]

I've just read a great essay about the Sumerian - Scythian relationship. It quotes ancient writers who claimed that the Scythians were originally from the area of Persia, lived in stone houses and had agriculture. Also that they were the first nation having a civilization with laws.
An other source claimed that Scythians and Egyptians had a dispute about the age of their own culture.
Ancient Indo-Europeans did not respect their deaths (at least not in a way the nomad people did) - see the Roman and Greek cremation or the Indo-Iranians way who put the dead body out for the vultures and other animals. Meanwhile nomad people such as Hungarians and yes, the Scythians too in fact did bury the bodies.

These things would clearly abolish the Indo-Iranian origin of the Scythian people (which is based on no evidence) and would assume that the Sumerians after the fall of their civilization fled to the North changing into a nomadic way of life.

[Balazs]

Other sources from the later times give us the feeling that all those nomad, half-nomad and "said to be Turkish" people like Scythians, Huns, Avars, Bulgars, Kazars, Hungarians etc had the same language.

For example in some writing Christian monks(?) wrote that these people got their translations of the Bible in their Hunnic language. Clearly stating that they had one single language.

The Kazars, especially their leaders adopted the Jewish religion. That's why a rabbi wrote them a letter asking their origin.
The Kazar prince answered that they are not Jews originally, but just adopted that religion. Also he wrote that they are of the 10 sons of Togarmah, a descendant of Japhet. He said the sons then:

In Hebrew:
1. Kozar 2. Pacinak 3. Aliqanos 4. Bulgar 5. Ragbiga (Ragbina, Ranbona)
6. Turqi 7. Buz 8. Zabuk 9. Ungari 10. Tilmac (Tilmic).

In the Arabic translation:

1. Khazar 2. Badsanag 3. As-alân

4. Bulghar 5. Zabub 6. Fitrakh (Kotrakh?) 7. Nabir 8. Andsar (Ajhar) 9. Talmis 10. Adzîgher

He mentions that they are their very close relatives. From these names we can easily recognize: Ungar, Bulgar, Kazar, Alan, Pacinak...
Also mentions that Ungars, Bulgars and Pacinaks live next to the Danube.

[Balazs]

Given the so called Swadesh list to determine the relationship between languages. Doing that with the 100 basic words of Hungarian and other members of the so called Finno-ugric language family we get about 23% of common words.
Swadesh said that every(!) language loses about 14% of its words in every 1000 years.
If we count a bit we get that the so called Finno-ugric language is about 10,000 years old... A bit nonsense...
While doing the same with Sumerian - Hungarian we get a much higher number in correlation.

[Balazs]

Altogether we can build a theory. I underline that is it only a theory, but can give a better explanation for the situation, than the now official theories. And as we know, if a theory can give a simple and pretty explanation, that explanation is the good. (like a badly working theory of geocentrism versus the simply nice and easy theory of heliocentrism. not to mention later Galilei's).

So about 10,000 years ago existed a language family maybe in near the Kaspian Sea. Finnic peoples, Uralic peoples, Turks split from it that time. (take into consideration that the last ice age ended about that time, giving the idea that those people followed the colder weather going to the North)
Sumerian civilisation rised and fell. Some of them not wanting the Akkadian rule fled to the North into the Iranian mountains. Survived by adopting a nomadic lifestyle. Later the northest parts of them were called Scythians, while those staying there had the names Meds, Alans etc.

[Balazs]

Hungarian mythology tells this:

Once there was Noah, who had a descendant Ménmarót (Nimród. meaning possibly "panther hunter" in Sumerian). Ménmarót had two sons Hunor and Magor who went to hunt. Following a wonderful deer, they arrived to the lands of Alans, into the swamps of Meothis (maybe East to the Black Sea). Because there were already too many people in Persia, where they are from, they settled there.

This fits perfectly into this theory I've just told.

[Balazs]

And the last thing:

Mario Alinei, an Italian linguist professor wrote a book mentioning that Etruscian was an old form of Hungarian. I advice for all the people having "Finno-ugric" mother tongue to read that book.

Because when I read it, I got the impression:
Mr. Alinei, I don't agree with you in many thing, but I am sure that you touched something very important in the history!

He claims that Hungarian is a native language here in the Carpathian Basin. I doubt. But those things, he shows in Etruscian can really mean that it really was in connection with our (I mean yours too!!) languages!
Etruscian people were called "eastern immigrants" by Greeks... Sometimes claiming that they were from Troy. While Hungarian myths claims that those establishing Troy are the relative of ours, coming also from Persia.

[Balazs]

So at last, shortly:

I would say Sumerian was not an Uralic language, because Uralic languages did not exist. Rather was a very very ancient form of Sumerian which split into Finnic, Uralic, Turkish, Mongolian (maybe Japanese, Korean, Ainu too?) and Hungarian. This would explain many things like Hungarian having systematic similarities with Finnic languages and also with Turkish languages.

Thank you for all who had the energy reading all these
Cheers,
Balázs

[Vincent]

Originally Posted by Kernunnos

I ever kept asking myself, if we europeans have shown so much progress in art and sciences for centuries, why are we so conspicously absent from the canonical set of first civilizations?

Perhaps it isn't so true ... I'm not saying Kemp like people are right, since he is clearly a superficial writer that does more damage than anything else to the reutation of europan peoples.


But I don't swallow this idea of a primitive world being introduced into civilization by non-europeans, at least as a whole.

Some of us were part of the inception of civilization.

After all in continental Europe there was an abundance of timber, so there was no such urgent need to make stone buildings ...

If we take into acount the possibility of a common ground of Indoeuropean and Uralic langauges (Indo-Uralic), then there might be a chance that a connection between Sumerians and Europans exists, i.e. this link might take us to ancestors, shared by both Sumerians and Indo-Europeans.

Although, Sumerian myths tell us (as I've read somewhere) that they weren't the first civilisation that has risen on the face of our planet. Sumerians succeeded this ancient wisdom from another one, before them, as they claim in their mythology.