Hollosi Information eXchange /HIX/
HIX HUNGARY 677
Copyright (C) HIX
1996-05-24
Új cikk beküldése (a cikk tartalma az író felelőssége)
Megrendelés Lemondás
1 absence (mind)  11 sor     (cikkei)
2 Revolutional afterthoughts (mind)  124 sor     (cikkei)
3 Re: going to Bulgaria/Italy... (mind)  49 sor     (cikkei)
4 Re: Revolutional afterthoughts (mind)  48 sor     (cikkei)
5 Re: origins (mind)  309 sor     (cikkei)
6 Dear Andras; (mind)  242 sor     (cikkei)
7 Hi Cecilia (mind)  40 sor     (cikkei)
8 Re: a summary description (mind)  15 sor     (cikkei)
9 Re: going to Bulgaria/Italy... (mind)  48 sor     (cikkei)
10 Re: Just me! (mind)  9 sor     (cikkei)

+ - absence (mind) VÁLASZ  Feladó: (cikkei)

Dear colleagues,
        Since I have been involved in extensive historical discussion on this l
i
 st over
 the last few days, it is my duty to say that I shall be away from base for the
 next ten days and my options set to nomail.
Dear kalandozasok enthusiasts, please bear in mind that I shall be unable to se
e
 any postings for that period.
                                Regards,
                                Panagiotis
+ - Revolutional afterthoughts (mind) VÁLASZ  Feladó: (cikkei)

Eva Balogh wrote:
>About a month before the outbreak of the revolution
>there were new, free, secret elections by the  student body. I was
>freely elected by very rebellious students. Prior to that the DISZ
>secretary was appointed by  the party.

It does not matter.This system was still in work when I studied at
BME, so i know it very well. The communist student leaders of the
years were elected secretly. But the ones who were offered were al-
ways young communists. The first election was made at the beginning
of the first year when the students did not know each other but the
few preselected comrads. They  had been given different organizati-
onal works before in the dormitory by the local youths organization,
just to make their face known by everybody.
On the election, they were the (freely and sectretly) chosable ones,
and they were usually chosen. Whada surprise !!

>Also, there is something wrong with your chronology. Che Guevara
>came a bit later.

I only compared that guy to Che Guevara. My father used other words,
but I visualized the guy for myself as Che.

>Our publication was mentioned in the indictment.[Imre Nagy trial]

C'mon, Eva this is nothing. You were very small fishes beside those
guys. That's why I started to write. You made joke out of PA, - you
were entirely right, i must add - but you have fallen into the same
trap.I assure you it looked really very funny. BTW ,did  you know,
that your story becomes more and more colourful on each telling ?

>You are a living example of those people some of us are talking
>about: intolerant,

Eva, that's not tolerancy that you tolerate what you like most and
agree with. You seems to commit this error regularly. I tolerated
your opinions (some of them are completelly undigestable for me),
because there were some fundamental points we are agreed on. Until
lately I did not speak up against you. This ended now. I will still
tolerate your opinions but can not tolerate you as honest partner
of debate anymore.

>accusing,libelous, and very, very low.

You were very low, when you started to call us (writers of Forum)
by names -here, not in the Forum-, without making any distinctions
amongst us. I sided you several times in those discussions, an now
I became also a nazi scumbag, inspite of the fact that I opposed
quite vehemently this pro-Szalasi discussion and when it continued
I temporary stopped to write to the Forum. (During this interval I
am nagging now the Randi. :-) poor lonely hearts there....;-) )

>I am sending Tamas's piece to Bela Liptak, who was very active at
>the Engineering School in those days (Budapesti Muszaki Egyetem).
>I am curious what he will think of it.

To help your search ;-), he was a third-year student of mechanical
engineering then.

>Those who were not "naive, apolitical losers," like Tamas's father,
>ended up on the gallows or received life, or ten years, or whatever.
>That is, these were the "bad guys," the politicos, the former DISZ
>secretaries.

AFAIK, during the first few days of the revolution more than 30
parties and innumerable councils and comittees were founded. It is
a very Hungarian thingy. This idiocy just can not stop amusing me.
There were russian tanks and soldiers on the streets of Budapest,
but instead of going down to fight (i.e: do soemthing) they started
to play political lottery by grounding organizations for themselves
and circle of friends. And you expect me to look up Goncz and the
likes.Is it so difficult understand that they are nobodies for me ?

It was also very Hungarian, that most of these organizations were
grounded by people who just few days before were (or tried to look)
still faithful communists.

>The "good guys" like Tamas's father who served faithfully without
>fanfare in the National Guard,on the other hand, got off scot-free.
>Thus,the real heroes were those the Kadar regime didn't punish.

No, he simply was lucky. It is not the punishment that makes the
dfference. Just look around in the Hungarian political theater.You
will not see people who actually did something, fought with gun in
hand during the freedom fight. The organizations of fighters were
forced out of politics right in the early days of Hungarian so-cal-
led democracy, and are labelled seniles, fascist, etc. They were
dangerous, because they have something which Csurka, Petho, Horn,
Goncz and the likes don't: legitimacy on '56. Few month ago, i had
to watch a TV program which was made on the deeds of Dudas and as-
sociates.Funny,all of them were communists and they tried to prove,
that it was afterall a socialist revolution and they were the good
guys who made it. Disgusting.

>And one more thing, if Tamas thinks that his piece is going to
>impress the non-Hungarian members and readers of this list he is
>mistaken. I am almost certain that the reaction will be negative.

I did not write it to impress the member of this list (sorry gals
and guys, next time). Simply the glass is full (betelt a pohar),
and I wanted to speak out.

>And one more thing. Just because I refuse to write into the Forum,
>I don't need all of you, who can handle English, start writing on
>this list.

You don't think, that anybody will believe this, do you ? You des-
perately wanted revanche, for weeks back you regularly placed your
daily little nasty remarks on us, that maybe we will come and you
will have the chance to replay that lost game on friendy ground.

You did not realise however, that during this show you degraded
yourself exactly to that despised, mud-throwing level with which
you love to accuse us. Hence you lost your moral advantage we are
here, as you secretly wished.  ;-) :-)  ;-)

>>cordially,

>My foot.

I appreciate you effort on forcing me to use my two-volume Oxford
Shorter on funny idioms. :-)

Tamas
+ - Re: going to Bulgaria/Italy... (mind) VÁLASZ  Feladó: (cikkei)

In message Sun, 19 May 1996 13:12:20 -0500,
  Norbert Walter >  writes:

  Would it be possible to get to
> Bulgaria from Italy directly (or vice virsa) so that I wouldn't have to go
> back to Budapest?
>
> Norb

Don't have to borrow anything from Jeliko to do that. It's probably much
pricier, but you can take the ferry from Italy to Greece, travel overland in
Greece to the Bulgarian border, and, if you want to travel cheaply, get on a
Bulgarian train only once you've passed the border.

Joost

>
> Norbert Ja'nos Udvardy-Walter      | "If a nation does not want a

P.S.
And you don't have to worry, I think, about this:

>love the stunning natural beauty of the Bulgarian countryside! But this
>return trip...are you sure, as an American passport holder, you want to
>return through Serbian territory in Rump Yugoslavia/Srpska? It might be
>wiser to go back via Romania and Hungary.

>Regards,
--
> George Szaszvari, DCPS Chess Club, 42 Alleyn Park, London SE21 7AA, UK

In '92, when the war in Yugoslavia had already been on quite a while, and
the Americans were already seen as enemies by the Serbs, I travelled, like
you, with Volanbusz, from Budapest to Sofia, and back from Istanbul(!). No
problem. Were controlled by (Serb-)Yugoslav militia once in between the
borders, and the borderguards themselves weren't very friendly either, but
all they really did was look grim. The four-or-so Americans travelling along
were their one objection: their passports were looked at extra thoroughly,
the militiamen looking extra grim and complaining about their presence to
the (Hungarian) driver - but then that was all there was to it, really. The
driver said something like, "well ask them yourself what you want to know,
they speak English, do you speak English?" and the bus laughed at this
sarcasm, and they left.
   One thing I was surprised to hear from you: it's now possible to buy
Budapest-Sofia tickets? Because then all that we could do was buy
Budapest-Istanbul tickets and ask to be dropped off in Sofia, which they
duly did - that was why we had to cross the Bulgarian/Turkish border and go
to Istanbul in order to board the bus back to Budapest - but that's another
story.
+ - Re: Revolutional afterthoughts (mind) VÁLASZ  Feladó: (cikkei)

I am not going to argue with Tamas Kocsis about the ins and outs of
elections of student representatives at the Ilona Zrinyi Women's Dormitory
in September 1956--after all he knows better what was going on than I.
Moreover, I doubt that I could change his mind.

        As far as my role--yes, I was a small fish. I would say five to ten
years worth of fish. But I assume for Tamas Kocsis, who would have done so
much better if he had been around, that is nothing.

>an now
>I became also a nazi scumbag, inspite of the fact that I opposed
>quite vehemently this pro-Szalasi discussion and when it continued
>I temporary stopped to write to the Forum. (During this interval I
>am nagging now the Randi. :-) poor lonely hearts there....;-) )

        Nobody ever called you a nazi scumbug--but you have to admit there
are a few on the Forum who truly are. By the way, I was glad that you raised
your voice against one of them--the one whose idol is Szalasi.

>To help your search ;-), he was a third-year student of mechanical
>engineering then.

        You don't have to help me. I know Bela Liptak personally. He and I
were members of the same organization, the MEFESZ. But I realize that you
don't think much of our efforts.


>This idiocy just can not stop amusing me.
>There were russian tanks and soldiers on the streets of Budapest,
>but instead of going down to fight (i.e: do soemthing) they started
>to play political lottery by grounding organizations for themselves
>and circle of friends. And you expect me to look up Goncz and the
>likes.Is it so difficult understand that they are nobodies for me ?

        So, I gather that October 23, the new national holiday of the
country, so declared by the Hungarian parliament in May 1990, is nothing to
you. And I gather that you don't appreciate Arpad Go:ncz who original was
condemned to death.

        By the way, your effort, on the one hand, to separate yourself from
the fascist scumbugs and, on the other, to include yourself among those I
called fascists/nazis/hungarists and in whose name you are now attacking me
now (betelt a pohar, etc.) is one of the riddles of current Hungarian
politics. If you also consider the spokesman for Ferenc Szalasi a man of
extreme views, like me, then why do you feel compelled to defend them
against those of us who consider their political views unacceptable.

        Eva Balogh
+ - Re: origins (mind) VÁLASZ  Feladó: (cikkei)

Dear Peter:

Somehow I missed this in all the reading I was catching up on.  As an
anthropology and history graduate from the University of Minnesota, I have a
few questions.  Generally speaking however, these are rather startling
prouncements presented as fact.  I would like to know what your sources for
these interesting "facts" are.

At 07:13 AM 2/17/96 -0400, you wrote:

>Indo-European languages and Finno-Ugrian languages are separate for at
>least in the past 20,000 years

Really,even Noam Chomsky connected with Massachusetts distinguished
universities is only theorizing his well researched views, and he's not sure
most languages are any older than 40,000 years.  The last I read in several
articles that have touched on the subject of language groups is that the
separation of the major _parents_ of Asian and European languages (e.g.
Indo-European proto-language, Sino-Tibetan proto-language, Turkic-Altaic
proto-language) may be less than 20,000 years ago.  The problem hinges on
the  Native American languages, you see.  The Native Americans, by the
latest mitochondrial DNA studies are mostly Asian.  The earliest wave of
them came _maybe_ about 30,000 years ago.  The latest wave came by boat only
about 5,000 years ago.  The groups estimated to have come less than 10,000
years ago have perceived relationships to both the Sino-Tibetan and
Turkic-Altaic languages.  Even some of the earlier groups have researchers
claiming to see relations to one or another of these groups.

; the proto-Finno-Ugrians settled on a narrow
>region south of the iceline between the Carpathians and the Ural 13 to
>15,000 years ago; languages began to separate about 8000 years ago;

Where's the archeological evidence for this?  Who did the research?  You're
stating this as a fact, not theory.  Considering how little of any sorts of
human remains and artifacts have survived more than 10,000 years (geology,
decomposition, weather, etc. not to mention human beings own habits of
destruction, recycling and plowing things up, etc.), and that the Oxford
Cambridge and Harvard scholars aren't even claiming they know positively
where their own illustrious West European ancestors were 15,000 years ago, I
find it hard to believe there is much credible research regarding the
origins of those inferior East European subhumans.

>
>The predecessors of the magyars descended from the Finno-Ugrian family of
>the Ural branch of the Ural-altaic peoples. The younger Ural branch
>developed into Samoyad and Finno-Ugrian. Finno-Ugrian branched off into (1)
>Finn, with its Lapp, Finno-Estonian, Tsermiss and Mordvin families; (2)
>Permish, with Zyrian and Votyak; and (3) Ugrian, with its Magyar, Vogul and
>Ostyak groups. The Altaic branch comprised Turks, Mongols,  and
>Manshu-Tungus, and their descendents.

Again, where's the research and evidence?  Who did it?
>
>6000-5000 B.C. Ural People moves from the lands between the Caspean Sea and
>the Aral Sea  to Western Siberia; The Finno-Ugrian groups and the Samoieds
>lived in the Ural region from the fifth millennium.  According to a theory
>(Kelteminar) the Ugors originated in central Asia, south of the Aral Sea,
>about 4000 B.C.

Ok, by about 6,000 B.C. there's a bit of decent archeology by the Russians,
Sir Aurel Stein, and others.  However, there is yet no consensus, and little
modern research by the most esteemed Western archeologists, etc.--who cannot
be accused of political or ethnic bias (their opinion, not mine--but that's
the reality and that's where the big research bucks go, and the labelling by
national U.S. and English magazines as "the best"), as to what
proto-civilizations here and there in 6,000 B.C. are succeeded by what later
peoples.  About the only three they're relatively sure of are the Sumerians
(who are then "lost" after 2,000 BCE or so), the Egyptians, and the Chinese.=
=20
 I've been a member of the History Book Club, and a subscriber to
"Archeology" magazine for years.  Additionally I get book catalogues from
several sources that include even rare books published in Britain.  If it's
been done in the English language, I'll generally find it eventually.  I
also get a couple of newsletters from university anthropology departments.
The Uof MN, for instance has good relations with the University of
Pennsylvania.  I'm very puzzled as to how I missed all these Western
universities latest research and consensus that you now state as "facts."
>
>4000-3300 B.C.
>Western Siberia, New Stone Age neolithic age ;home of the Ural People, the
>so-called Finno-     Ugrian peoples; Kozlov Period, Ugors of the Ob were
>common ancesters; the FU only knew one domesticated animal: the dog; 3000
>B.C.; copper, horses, agriculture; But some claim that that the
>Finno-Ugrians never lived in Western Siberia
>
Again where is the evidence?  Who's research and analysis is this?

>There are numerous theories about the origin of the Hungarian people.
>According to one, there was a Europid type people on the northwestern
>boundary of China, at the Mongolian border. Before the third millennium
>they left this place for the west arriving to Western Siberia in the second
>millennium. There is no general agreement on when the Ural group broke up.
>it sems that the Volga-Kama areas became the gathering place of all the
>Finno-Ugrian peoples. Here they persued gathering, hunting, fishing.
>Hungarian words of Finno-Ugric origin west of the Ural: feny=F6, nyir. East
>of the Ural: m=E9h, m=E9z,, nemeslazac; everybody agrees that before the
>breakup the FU lived together in the 4th and 3rd millennium; lived on the
>the two sides of the Ural Mountains, along the Ob and the Volga-Kama
>region; Chernetsov: originally from the Aral Sea area; the FU moved
>westward from the Ural-Kama regions; homes: dog-outs; metallic objects
>imported from the south

Here you could cite a lot of archeologists' work.  Owen Lattimore's _Inner
Frontiers of Asia_ cites a lot of research, Sir Aurel Stein, the recent work
by Professor Maier of the University of Pennsylvania, to name just a few
etc..  However, it is more helpful to readers if you do cite some sources.
Not everyone here majored in the eccentric subjects I did.
>
>3000 B.C. Kama River valley is populated

By whom, and how do you know?
>
>3000-2500 B.C. Kama River; New Stone Age, early phase; end of Finno-Ugric
>unity;  From the third millennium the Finno-Ugrians lived the the
>Volga-Kama area.men were Europid, women were mildly Mongoloid, flat-faced;
>settled along waterways; fishing and shipping; hunting, dogs; copper,
>spinning and weaving; story of Hunor and Magyar; chasing of the deer; Turul
>bird; the Finno-Ugrians of the Volga-Kama area settled along the rivers
>from the beginning of the third millennium; during this millennium they
>were fishing, hunting, gathering;

Sources of this information?
>
>2100-1900 B.C. last phase of the New Stone Age period of the Finno-Ugric
peoples
>
Sources?

>2000-1600 B.C. agriculture and animal husbandry in Western Siberian
>Finno-Ugrian lands; ; from the 2nd mil.; cooper age, bronze age to mid-2nd
>mil.B.C.;

Sources?
>2000 B.C. circa; Finns' westward movement from the Kama valley

Sources for this contention?
>
>1600-1500 B.C. Horseback riding Finno-Ugrians; majority practice
>agriculture; The break-up of the Finno-Ugrians took place in the middle of
>the second millennium; in touch with the Iranians until 1600 B.C.; 26
>Hungarian words exists of Old-Iranian origin;
>
The Iranians (I've known a few very well educated ones) believe it's
possible a segment of the Magyars were the Parthians and part of both this
and the succeeding Persian empire.  Some believe Zorastar may have been a
Magyar, since he was a "Chaldean."  Although that had come to denote a
religion, it started out as an ethnic label, referring to a non-Persian
group that lived in the old empire before it was established.  This is also
mentioned in Prof. Tom Jones (U of Mn--friend and associate of Blegen, et
al) textbook used in the 1960's and 70's _Ancient History_.


>1000 B.C. proto-Hungarians: adoption of nomad life-style,  second
>millennium;  around 1000 the weather warmed up, Ugors of the Ob moved north
>to the taiga; Hungarians moved south, steppe, became nomads living in
>tents; horses and sheep, sold to Chinese, Persian, Greek traders; from the
>Scythians and Sarmatians learnt to work iron; felt tents,  iron swords;
>reflex bow, sculpt stylized animals; religious symbols; this was the
>Scythian-Sarmatian period of their history;   by the middle of the second
>millennium they had horses, cows, goats and domesticated hogs; they sowed
>wheat (spelt, German wheat, Triticum spelta), millet, metal processing,
>bronze tools, copper jewelry silver coated, silver (religious
>significance);

If the Iranians are right, (note the use of the word "if"), it's possible
the  Magyars taught others how to make iron, instead.  The Chaldeans you
see, were more than religious mystics.  They were also the scientists and
technologists, and older than the Persians.

However, more recently, Stephen Sisa's book _Spirit of Hungary_ cites
archeological and anthropological research involving the earliest known
graves of Magyars that show they arrived with bags of seeds, agricultural
implements, etc. suggesting they were not exactly the Mongolian type nomad
your pronouncement suggests.  The description in his book is of a people not
much different than the American West European descended pioneers.  I hardly
think they would appreciate being regarded as less-civilized nomads.  The
early Magyars don't appear to be any different than the early Germans for
that matter, who don't think of their ancestors as being nomads.  They
describe them as agriculturalists expanding and seeking more living space.
>
>        The Hungarian language is part of the Ural language family
>belonging to the Finno-Ugrian sub-division. Hungarian gradually acquired an
>independence of its own in the first part of the first millennium before
>Christ Ugors: Magyars, Ostiak (Chantik), Vogul (Udmort) Volga group:
>Mordvin, Cheremis (Marik) Baltic Finns: Finns, Estonians, Kariala, etc.
>About 1000 words of Ural and Finno-Ugrian origin are still part of the
>living Hungarian languages and 70-75% of the words in use today are derived
>from Finno-Ugrian roots. The language was enriched during the earliest
>history of the Hungarian people with Iranian (ancient, old, middle),
>various Turkish and eastern Slav languages.
>
It's also been greatly enriched by German, Latin, and Greek.  Having studied
several Indo-European languages, and not so many of the other groups, it's
always been a relief in my genealogical and family history work to encounter
words whose roots I readily recognize.  I wouldn't be able to accomplish as
much as I have if the Hungarian language hadn't borrowed so much in the last
1,000 years from the western and Mediterranean Indo European languages.

By the way, have you ever notice how often Gaelic appears to be a cross
between Russian and German.  However, the Gaelic, as the Celtic language is
believed to be older.  Perhaps the ancestor of both the Slavic and Germanic
subgroups...  (My mother is mostly Scottish, and I represent her clan at the
festivals around here a bit. I've been trying to pick up a bit more
Gaelic,and acquired a few books and tapes.  Again, the language is also in
the family historical records.)


>1000-500 B.C.  Clans were the basic political units until the first
>millennium B.C.; completion of the break-up of Finno-Ugrian unity; separate
>Hungarian group, around 1000 B.C. Ugrian branch; between the middle Volga
>and the Urals; Kama River; the community split into the Finnish and Ugrian
>communities; Ugrian divided into present-day Ugrians of the Ob Velley, the
>Voguls (Man'shi) and Ostyaks (Chanti), and into proto-Hungarians; around
>500 B.C.; all agree that the FU lived in Europe; the U lived further east
>than the F; Volga bend, both banks; the FU were skilled pottery makers,
>weavers, spinners; bred livestock and tilled the land with hoes; leartned
>to breed horses; 5th c.: began to use bronse and later iron; primitive
>agriculture and livestock did not replace hunting and fishing, fur-bearing
>animals; connection between the Ob-Ugors and the proto-Hungarians was
>broken in the first half of the first mi.
>
>contact with tribes, Scythians and Sarmatians who spoke Iranian; Greek to
>the south, Armenians in the Caucasus, Iranians south of Lake Aral; southern
>trade, Khorezm; nomads of the Pontic steppes acting acting as middlemen;
>fur trade led to accumulation of property;
>
>
>400-300 B.C
>        . The proto-Hungarians move from Western Siberia to Magna Hungaria
>(Bashkiria)  between the Kama and the Ural rivers; some believe that took
>place between 500 and 600 A.D. the whole movement from Siberia is denied by
>most historians, original home at the Kama river; The Ugors stayed in
>Western Siberia while the Finns crossed the Ural Mountains. At the end of
>the first millennium the Ugors, who by now used horses and became nomads,
>were broken into two parts by the invasion of their lands by the Huns and
>Sarmatians. The proto-Hungarians crossed the Ural and settled in Baskiria,
>west of the Volga River. The Ugor groups, from which the Hungarians
>separated, were located in the eastern and southern wings of the
>Finno-Ugrian homeland. They were in close contact with the Bashkirs. The
>Gyarmat and Jen=F6 tribal names correspond to the Bashkirian Jurmati and
>Jenej groups.  Hungarians around the Kama river were the ones who broke
>away from the the Ob-Ugric group, mixed with Iranian groups until Turkic
>group pushed out the Iranians; latest in the 4th c. B.C.; The ancient home
>of the Hungarians was at the confluence of the Volga and the Kama rivers at
>the eastern border of mixed forests and west of the taiga. They came here
>from western Siberia during the second half of the fourth century because
>of the Huns. Most of the Hungarians than lived on the western bank of the
>Volga from where they departed around 750.

Again, whose research, analysis, etc. are you citing here?  How old is it?

Koestler _The Thirteenth Tribe_, cites Khazar empire records (Jewish,
Turkish, etc.) that mention a deliberate resettlement of at least one large
branch of the Magyars in northern Russia.  He also says there are records of
many towns during this period in northern Russia whose names are all
preceded with the word "Magyar."  Rather like the use of "Balaton" as a
preface for a number of modern Hungarian towns.

One thing I learned a long time ago, beware of a consensus that hasn't been
updated by more modern, and more objective research and analysis.  Remember
the brontosaurus head?  Every museum in the world had the wrong head on the
wrong body, even for many years after the correct heads were being found
atop complete skeletons.

It was also only 20 years ago--and still in many textbooks that the
"consensus" of sage archeologists was that Native Americans did not exist in
the "new world" more than about 9,000 years ago.  Ask William McNeish what
he went through despite his accumulation of a lot of research that clearly
demonstrated something different.

It took how many thousands of years for the majority of educated people in
the world to believe the earth was round and not flat?

Human beings have never readily and quickly accepted any new ideas, despite
volumes of good research.  Additionally, we are always improving the tools
and techniques of research and analysis.  Archeology and anthropology in any
real sense didn't even exist 150 years ago.  History, real history--not paid
propaganda, including the analysis and comparing of source didn't exist for
the most part as little as a hundred years ago.  The archeologists methods
and tools of even 75, 50, even 30 years ago, differ from what is done today.
The prejudices they themselves grew up with, the attitudes and treatment of
entire nations toward differing races and ethnicities have changed--mostly
in less than 30 years.  Yet how many books and articles are still being used
that were created under the old prejudices, the old methods and tools?  How
many archeologists and historians are there today in the universities who
are over the age of 40 and head most of the research and writing projects
who grew up under the old prejudices, studying from the old textbooks?

I'm a cynic.  I don't think any theory that has reasonable post World War II
research is quite ready to be thrown out yet.  I'd like to see what the
young young rebels in the universities now come up with in another 25 or 30
years or so.  I have a feeling there are a lot more erroneous brontosaurus
heads about to be replaced...  And I guess there's still enough of a
youngster in me, that I still can't get quite used to any self-proclaimed
"infallible" pontiffs in any field, and rather enjoy seeing their hats
tipped by the irreverent young, sometimes.

Sincerely,

Cecilia L. Fa'bos-Becker
San Jose, CA

(and waiting for a return call from Stanford's Prof. Klein, about a few
things...)

tel./fax: 408-223-6102
e-mail: 

N0BBS, Cecilia L. Fabos-Becker -  - San Jose, CA
+ - Dear Andras; (mind) VÁLASZ  Feladó: (cikkei)

Due to a combination of health problems (two surgeries, flu, etc.) and
computer problems (some of my e-mail was lost for several weeks), please
accept my apologies for not responding to this posting sooner.  Rather than
tie up the group, or go into detail on this subject, however, I'll try to
summarize a late reply as best as possible.

At 09:04 PM 3/1/96 -0800, you wrote:

>(snip)
>> Second, you are citing a Hungarian publication from a communist controlled
>> era.
>Indeed. But the fact that something was published in that era doesn't render
>it useless, and the arguments made by the author (Komoro1czy is the best
>Sumerologist in Hungary), which amount to pointing out basic methodological
>flaws as well as a large number of elementary errors, had nothing to do with
>communist ideology. The method of linguistic reconstruction that he is
>appealing to has been developed long before communism came to Eastern Europe.

Agreed, but it doesn't hurt to check and see if big brother and his ideology
interfered in any way.  A lot of other people's research, even citing good
pre-communist methodology has been influenced.  Frankly knowing the "office
politics" and the existence of personal prejudices among so many Western
scholars, I always like to know something of the background of the writer of
any book.  I am also familiar with how scientific experiments are set
up--it's a person who starts with a hypothesis, a theory, based upon
something he or she would like to prove or disprove, thus already a root in
subjectivity.  Ditto for archeological research.  I remember Professor
Wormington of U of Colorado describing how difficult it was to get funds for
North American Native American archeological research compared with ancient
Greece, for instance.  All of this skews what we learn of most things, and
what we believe is true.  It's all subjective and selective ultimately, and
takes a long time and many trials and observations before it will stand the
test of long-term time as "fact."
>

>Sure, but the oldest known Hungarian is separated from the Sumerian by
>thousands of years! Aside from the Halotti Besze1d which is conventionally
>dated at 1192, the very end of the period (10th-12th century) under
>discussion, all we have from Hungarian are sporadic words from a handful of
>documents whose language is Latin or sometimes Greek.

English is separated from Latin by 2,000 years, yet how many root words are
there in English from Latin that have persisted?  As I look at just these
few sentences I can see that it is at least 40% of what I have just written.
>
>To put the matter in perspective, we are talking about less than a couple of
>hundred words here,
Badiny counted over 600, and said this was simply based on what the
researchers had to work with, suspected it was much more.  But this is
rather minor, my apologies.
and a significant portion of these are place names which
>play very little role in tracing the genetic affiliation of languages for the
>simple reason that place names tend to persist in the new language. You
>wouldn't want to claim that English is genetically related to American Indian
>languages just because the map is full of words like Dakota...

Thanks for the chuckle.  After spending half a day cleaning up after the
earthquake (the epicenter was less than 10 miles from here--and wouldn't you
know it would have to be the thrust fault of that dual-fault junction), and
then trying to catch up on political matters all at once (everyone wanted
stuff done yesterday if not earlier...), I enjoyed this.

As a person who is _part_ Native American--as some incredible number like
3/4 of the U.S. inhabitants are, I can definitely say there is a genetic
inheritance, although in the language it is a _lot_ less--at least
directly.--Who knows ca 40,000 BCE, right?  Did you know the "O" blood group
is dominant in the Native American population and still in larger percentage
quantities in the Americas than in any other region of the world?  The
"dominant" blood group (at least taught so in anthro classes 25 years ago)
is "A" for Europe, and "B" for Asia.  My mother and I were O+ but all the
rest of my immediate family are either A or B, and my father's family in the
U.S. has  almost no O in it, and less A.  It's mostly B and AB.   Most of
Mother's family is A and O.  I guess I just come by my uncivilized
attitudes, and nature interests, honestly--despite the fact that often
nature and I don't seem to mesh very well--unless you count how well I feed
the mosquitoes, deer ticks, and miss catching the fish. ;-)


>

>
>Compare Beowulf to Chaucer and you will see the tremendous difference five-six
>hundred years can make

Required reading of both in my senior year--high school--English class.

-- without the benefit of a written record it would be
>hard to believe they are the same language at all.

The problem is they are not.  Beowulf is Saxon.  Chaucer was writing after
the French speaking Normans took over.  Although the ancient Saxon is
related to the ancient Frankish-German tongue, the Franks merged with the
Gallo-Romans, etc. to develop French while the Saxons "merged" with the more
Germanic/Slavic (? question on the Slavic) tongue of the Celts.  Fewer
Romans stayed behind in Britain than in France, so although there is a Latin
influence in both areas, and English itself much later shows the strong
Latin connection, the Latin influence was less when Beowulf was written than
the later works of Chaucer.

Professor Bachrach at the University of Minnesota explained this all much
better than the high school English teacher.  He specialized in the study of
the early modern West European languages as well as the historical records
and literature using them.

  Relating Sumerian and
>Hungarian tries to bridge the gap not of half a millenium but several
>millenia, and without the benefit of a written record. This is not a
>scientific undertaking, much as building a very large pot for boiling water
>will not get you to 424 Farenheit, you will just get more water at 212. The
>methods of historical linguistics simply cannot bridge a time gap that big.

Absolutely true.  Linguistics by itself cannot do this.  However, that means
all linguistic statements of most languages before roughly 500 BCE are
equally fallible and equally theoretical.  All we have is more people
believing one theory and less of another, but it's all little more than
belief in supposition.
>
>The study of Sumerian is quite a complicated matter in itself -- the earliest
>written records are from a period when the language was no longer in active
There are quite a number of clay tablets that do go back to the 2nd and 3rd
dynasties (there were only 3).  See Noah Kramer's book, _History Begins at
Sumer_.  He is still the acknowledged "father" of Sumerian archeology.  He's
still spoken of in awe.

>use outside ritual situations, much like Latin in medeival Europe.
Again, see Kramer, Jones, etc.



>

>I have no idea -- scientific theories change all the time. But methods change
>far less often, physicists still use the ones pioneered by Bacon and Galileo,

The basic "scientific method" of setting up an experiment, true, is
unchanged, as is scientific observation with the human senses.  However.  We
are no longer limited to the immediate human senses.  New methods include
statistics, quantitative analysis, etc..  New tools have also changed our
understanding and our knowledge.  There's an awful lot that always existed
that we didn't know, and we based our beliefs on that limited knowledge, but
we have changed based upon what we have gained by a review using the new
tools--and even methods.

>and historical linguists still used the ones pioneered by Jones and Bopp.
Fine, but where were the methods, even the study of linguistics itself even
200 years ago?

If
>there'd been a methodological revolution that suddenly extends the powers of
>linguistics by a factor of five I'd know about it.

For shame and you even work at IBM...;-)  Where would Noam Chomsky be
without IBM, today? ;-)  What departmental closet at that building have they
locked you into anyway?  It's absolutely terrible what corporate giants
sometimes do  to their loyal employees... (you realize I hope that  I'm
thoroughly enjoying being able to tease just a little, but mean nothing
seriously here).


>


>Hungarian linguistics is in tremendous need of support. If you are a
>patron of the sciences I'd much rather direct your generosity towards
>problems relevant today, ranging from spelling reform to more study of
>Hungarian in the neighboring countries, to better dictionaries and machine
>translation tools, etc. etc. than to something that is a rather idle object
>of curiosity. Let's suppose Hungarian is related to Sumerian. What difference
>does this make in the neighboring countries, where Hungarian is dying out,
>in the classroom, where a better spelling could help staving off the danger of
>illiteracy, in the technical fields, where the lack of productivity tools
>for translators mean that more and more technical material is available
>only in English, so that eventually higher learning will no longer be
>accessible through Hungarian, etc. etc.? What difference would it make if
>Hungarian turns out not to be related to Sumerian?

The biggest problem for Hungarians is the question of their very survival as
a people.  I think you have heard that Romania just passed a language law
last week that is even more severe than Slovakia's.  This one will prohibit
the use of Hungarian in homes, schools and churches--anywhere in Romania in
fact.  Why is this happening?  Because of the beliefs that Romanians have
that Hungarians are an inferior Asiatic race, only recently descended from
invading barbarians that do not belong in Europe--or anywhere in the world
for that matter.

As long as entire, well-armed nations can commit genocide because of what
they believe of the race, ethnicity, history of other peoples--that some are
superior to others--then entire peoples are in danger of being exterminated.
If all ethnicities, all real nations, are to survive and be treated with
dignity and respect, in all aspects of their lives--political, financial,
militarily, etc., it will only be when all people understand that all
peoples, all nations have an illustrious history that further and further
back merges into one.  Too few people really believe we all descend from
Adam and Eve and we are all one.  It has to be proved first.  And until it
is, as more and more people fight for fewer resources, we will use
prejudices and ignorance to determine who is more deserving of those resources.

Right now, the view of most of the nations of the world, is that the Slavs
could wipe out Hungary tomorrow, and it would be fine and dandy.  This is
evidenced in a litany of actions, including the statements of U.S. officials
to Hungarian officials (re: the Romanian treaty), the Clinton
administration's continued effort to give Romania unconditional, permanent
MFN--despite events there of the past month, etc..  If Romania, Slovakia,
and Serbia were to suddenly get together and do a "Bosnia" on Romania, do
you really think any other nation in the world would give a damn--much less
stop it?

Genocide is the product of ethnic ignorance and arrogance.  Only knowledge
and the truth will ever end it.  Without life itself for an ethnic people,
any ethnic people, nothing else is important.

So, I'm now waiting for a return telephone call from Professor Klein at
Stanford.-

And I still have to clean up the rest of my hard drive's e-mail to have
enough space for some idiotic segment of my computer drives that relates to
my printer program and can't keep itself separated from extraneous stuff, so
I can print out some materials for a lobbying effort in Southern California
to stop the MFN.  A brand new drive, motherboard, and all kinds of extra,
new memory and that blankety-blank printer driver is still claiming it still
can't find have enough memory to operate...

This hasn't been my _year_!

See you later--maybe at the Lyric Theatre performance of the "Merry Widow"
in San Jose, June 22?  Assuming I ever get finished cleaning up my drive...

Sincerely,

Cecilia L. Fa'bos-Becker
San Jose, CA
tel./fax: 408-223-6102
e-mail: 




>
>Andra1s Kornai
>
>
N0BBS, Cecilia L. Fabos-Becker -  - San Jose, CA
+ - Hi Cecilia (mind) VÁLASZ  Feladó: (cikkei)

Hope you get that hdrive of yours cleaned up...


At 05:16 PM 5/23/96 -0600, you wrote:
>Dear Andras;
<major snippos>

Question:
>
>The biggest problem for Hungarians is the question of their very survival as
>a people.

Would you mind expounding on this statement just a teeny bit more?

>I think you have heard that Romania just passed a language law
>last week that is even more severe than Slovakia's.  This one will prohibit
>the use of Hungarian in homes, schools and churches--anywhere in Romania in
>fact.  Why is this happening?  Because of the beliefs that Romanians have
>that Hungarians are an inferior Asiatic race, only recently descended from
>invading barbarians that do not belong in Europe--or anywhere in the world
>for that matter.

Another question:

Realize, that I am *not* an expert at any of this *stuff* - is the above
para's contents for real?  If so, what are the Romanians doing in Hungary,
looking to sell their goods and thereby asking for so called *hungarian
support* of their very livelihoods from the very inferior people whom are
banned through the passing of the law you describe as above  - on each and
every corner of any main street... not to mention, all of the  very main
streets?"  - Why is the Hungarian Government even allowing them into the
country in the first place, given the knowledge of such facts?

<snip>

Just curious....

Thanks
Aniko
>
+ - Re: a summary description (mind) VÁLASZ  Feladó: (cikkei)

At 02:56 AM 5/21/96 -0700, Andras Kornai wrote:

> If Mr. Farkas is willing to undertake
>a more extensive translation effort, the FORUM archives have virtually
>unlimited supplies of what Ga1bor Fencsik calls `Goebbelsian gibberish'.
>'nuff said.

Thanks but no thanks. The only reason I did this one masterpiece was that it
was published in Hungary, then someone else than its author tried to defend
it, so, I tought it would give the rest of the readers a taste. However, I
don't plan to make everyone here sick of their stomachs (including myself).

Gabor D. Farkas

P. S. Sorry for the late reply, I was out of town.
+ - Re: going to Bulgaria/Italy... (mind) VÁLASZ  Feladó: (cikkei)

In article >, 
says...

>P.S.
>And you don't have to worry, I think, about this:
>>....are you sure, as an American passport holder, you want to
>>return through Serbian territory in Rump Yugoslavia/Srpska? It might be
>>wiser to go back via Romania and Hungary.

>In '92, when the war in Yugoslavia had already been on quite a while, and
>the Americans were already seen as enemies by the Serbs, I travelled, like
>you, with Volanbusz, from Budapest to Sofia, and back from Istanbul(!). No
>problem. Were controlled by (Serb-)Yugoslav militia once in between the
>borders, and the borderguards themselves weren't very friendly either, but
>all they really did was look grim. The four-or-so Americans travelling
>along were their one objection: their passports were looked at extra
>thoroughly, the militiamen looking extra grim and complaining about their
>presence to the (Hungarian) driver - but then that was all there was to it,
>really. The driver said something like, "well ask them yourself what you
>want to know, they speak English, do you speak English?" and the bus
>laughed at this sarcasm, and they left.
>   One thing I was surprised to hear from you: it's now possible to buy
>Budapest-Sofia tickets? Because then all that we could do was buy
>Budapest-Istanbul tickets and ask to be dropped off in Sofia, which they
>duly did - that was why we had to cross the Bulgarian/Turkish border and go
>to Istanbul in order to board the bus back to Budapest - but that's another
>story.

My ticket via Sofia was Bucharest-Thessaloniki, stopping off in Sofia.
The other destinations in Romania were bought individually as I travelled,
stopping off to visit relatives for a while.

You might be right about not having to worry, but I suspect that Serb
militiamen will nowadays look a lot grimmer. I don't think that they'll
have taken too kindly to US cruise missiles, etc, having been aimed at
Serb positions subsequent to the time that you were there. Of course,
should an American passport holder like to test this theory, then they
should by all means do so.

I really don't think one will get too much laughter now, except perhaps
from the Serbs at the naivete of the American passport holders (or their
advisors.)

Regards,

--
 George Szaszvari, DCPS Chess Club, 42 Alleyn Park, London SE21 7AA, UK
 *** Interested in s/h chess books? Ask for my list! Global service ***
+ - Re: Just me! (mind) VÁLASZ  Feladó: (cikkei)

At 10:59 AM 5/22/96 -0500, NPA wrote:

>
>Of course. Because there were questions. Naughty questions. And who
>wants to answer to those?

Or another explanation: nausea.

Gabor D. Farkas

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