Are Huns and Mongols Related?

get yur troll infraction yurself Mfokker
yu such full idiots cannot shut yur fool upp

you know much about huns, so tell fokking trash here , goo on
trash cfc is what its for, for that

Moderator Action: Infracted for flaming. Again.
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You sound like you're trying to imitate an Irish accent.

Ajidica said:

Is it unusual that we know this little about a rather important group? Given how involved the Huns were in Roman politics, it seems odd we know so little about them.

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Welcome to premodern history.

Deja Vu. We had this discussion already somewhere. Wait, it was here.

The only first-hand source on Huns there is, is a journal of Priscus of Panium, who was a part of Roman emabssy to Atilla "court". Here's a English translation.

From this accout we know the only 3 "Hunnic" words that survived, which are (TLO, check it out) strava, medos and kamos. And they seem to be pretty obviously Slavic. Strava is a feast, held in honor of the dead before cremation. The name Stravinsky comes from it. Medos or Med is an old honey based beer-like drink, somewhat similiar to mead. And Kamos, which Priscus tells is made of barley, could propbably be kvas, a drink popular to these day.

Some of thier recorded names, like Balamber (Balamir), Bleda (Buda), Rugila, Kreka, Tuldila (and Attila even) and couple of others, do sound like a kind Gothicisation of Slavic names. It's subjective, of course, but I'm pretty sure anyone speaking Slavic natively knows what I'm talking about. There also are names that look pretty Turkic: Mundzuk, Boncuk, Dengizich.

Exempts from the said Priscus journey, relating to the description of the court of Attila the Hun:

...At the river we were received by barbarian ferrymen, who rowed us across the river in boats made by themselves out of single trees hewn and hollowed.

Spoiler :

Traditional Slavic choln or monoxylon, which gain promonece during Balkan invasions.

...Having waited for some time until Attila advanced in front of us, we proceeded, and having crossed some rivers we arrived at a large village, where Attila's house was said to be more splendid than his residences in other places. It was made of polished boards, and surrounded with a wooden enclosure, designed, not for protection, but for appearance. The house of Onegesius was second to the king's in splendour, and was also encircled with a wooden enclosure, but it was not adorned with towers like that of the king. Not far from the enclosure was a large bath which Onegesius - who was the second in power among the Scythians - built, having transported the stones from Pannonia; for the barbarians in this district had no stones or trees, but used imported material.

Spoiler :

Log cabin is called izba and is a traditional Slavic dwelling, no matter West, East or South.


Bath is a very iconic Slavic feature

...When Attila entered the village he was met by girls advancing in rows, under thin white canopies of linen, which were held up by the outside women who stood under them, and were so large that seven or more girls walked beneath each. There were many lines of damsels thus canopied, and they sang Scythian songs. When he came near the house of Onegesius, which lay on his way, the wife of Onegesius issued from the door, with a number of servants, bearing meat and wine, and saluted him and begged him to partake of her hospitality. This is the highest honour that can be shown among the Scythians. To gratify the wife of his friend, he ate, just as he sat on his horse, his attendants raising the tray to his saddlebow; and having tasted the wine, he went on to the palace, which was higher than the other houses and built on an elevated site.

Spoiler :

Maiden circle dance known as kolo or horovod is a know thing too.

...As I waited and walked up and down in front of the enclosure which surrounded the house, a man, whom from his Scythian dress I took for a barbarian, came up and addressed me in Greek, with the word Xaire, "Hail!" I was surprised at a Scythian speaking Greek. For the subjects of the Huns, swept together from various lands, speak, besides their own barbarous tongues, either Hunnic or Gothic, or - as many as have commercial dealings with the western Romans - Latin; but none of them easily speak Greek, except captives from the Thracian or Illyrian sea-coast; and these last are easily known to any stranger by their torn garments and the squalor of their heads, as men who have met with a reverse. This man, on the contrary, resembled a well-to-do Scythian, being well dressed, and having his hair cut in a circle after Scythian fashion. Having returned his salutation, I asked him who he was and whence he had come into a foreign land and adopted Scythian life.

Spoiler :

Hair cut in cirlce or pod-gorshok "like a pot on a head", is very characteristic for Slavs.

...He considered his new life among the Scythians better than his old life among the Romans, and the reasons he gave were as follows: "After war the Scythians live in inactivity, enjoying what they have got, and not at all, or very little, harassed. The Romans, on the other hand, are in the first place very liable to perish in war, as they have to rest their hopes of safety on others, and are not allowed, on account of their tyrants to use arms. And those who use them are injured by the cowardice of their generals, who cannot support the conduct of war. But the condition of the subjects in time of peace is far more grievous than the evils of war, for the exaction of the taxes is very severe, and unprincipled men inflict injuries on others, because the laws are practically not valid against all classes.

...Within the enclosure were numerous buildings, some of carved boards beautifully fitted together, others of straight, fastened on round wooden blocks which rose to a moderate height from the ground. Attila's wife lived here, and, having been admitted by the barbarians at the door, I found her reclining on a soft couch. The floor of the room was covered with woollen mats for walking on. A number of servants stood round her, and maids sitting on the floor in front of her embroidered with colours linen cloths intended to be placed over the Scythian dress for ornament.

Spoiler :

This reminds of the Slavic tradition of emroidery.

...When the hour arrived we went to the palace, along with the embassy from the western Romans, and stood on the threshold of the hall in the presence of Attila. The cup-bearers gave us a cup, according to the national custom, that we might pray before we sat down. Having tasted the cup, we proceeded to take our seats; all the chairs were ranged along the walls of the room on either side. Attila sat in the middle on a couch; a second couch was set behind him, and from it steps led up to his bed, which was covered with linen sheets and wrought coverlets for ornament, such as Greeks and Romans use to deck bridal beds.

...The places on the right of Attila were held chief in honour, those on the left, where we sat, were only second. Berichus, a noble among the Scythians, sat on our side, but had the precedence of us. Onegesius sat on a chair on the right of Attila's couch, and over against Onegesius on a chair sat two of Attila's sons; his eldest son sat on his couch, not near him, but at the extreme end, with his eyes fixed on the ground, in shy respect for his father.

...When all were arranged, a cup-bearer came and handed Attila a wooden cup of wine. He took it, and saluted the first in precedence, who, honoured by the salutation, stood up, and might not sit down until the king, having tasted or drained the wine, returned the cup to the attendant. All the guests then honoured Attila in the same way, saluting him, and then tasting the cups; but he did not stand up. Each of us had a special cupbearer, who would come forward in order to present the wine, when the cup-bearer of Attila retired. When the second in precedence and those next to him had been honoured in like manner, Attila toasted us in the same way according to the order of the seats. When this ceremony was over the cup-bearers retired, and tables, large enough for three or four, or even more, to sit at, were placed next the table of Attila, so that each could take of the food on the dishes without leaving his seat.

Spoiler :

Wooden dishes were very common among, sometimes as common as clay ones.

...The attendant of Attila first entered with a dish full of meat, and behind him came the other attendants with bread and viands, which they laid on the tables. A luxurious meal, served on silver plate, had been made ready for us and the barbarian guests, but Attila ate nothing but meat on a wooden trencher. In everything else, too, he showed himself temperate; his cup was of wood, while to the guests were given goblets of gold and silver. His dress, too, was quite simple, affecting only to be clean. The sword he carried at his side, the latchets of his Scythian shoes, the bridle of his horse were not adorned, like those of the other Scythians, with gold or gems or anything costly.

...When the viands of the first course had been consumed we all stood up, and did not resume our seats until each one, in the order before observed, drank to the health of Attila in the goblet of wine presented to him. We then sat down, and a second dish was placed on each table with eatables of another kind. After this course the same ceremony was observed as after the first.

...When evening fell torches were lit, and two barbarians coming forward in front of Attila sang songs they had composed, celebrating his victories and deeds of valour in war. And of the guests, as they looked at the singers, some were pleased with the verses, others reminded of wars were excited in their souls, while yet others, whose bodies were feeble with age and their spirits compelled to rest, shed tears. After the songs a Scythian, whose mind was deranged, appeared, and by uttering outlandish and senseless words forced the company to laugh.

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Note how drastically different this lifestyle is to common steppic way of life.

This is pretty much all substantial first-hande contemporary info we have on Huns, and thus all conclusions are derived based on it.

Call me biased or whatever, but since we're just lightheartedly discussing this stuff, I can't help but mention how similiar all those customs are to Slavic customs.

Or, of course, this could be any other tribe or ethnos.

Lord Baal said:

We don't know anything about the Hunnic language other than a few specific words, which aren't enough to determine if they were Slavic, Germanic, Turkic or space aliens. The Huns were clearly NOT the Xiongnu. So, yes, we know next-to-nothing about them.

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Well, absent any theory pointing to another, I don't think we can say they clearly weren't the Xiongnu. It's less likely than other theories, but it's not falsifiable.

Cutlass said:

Caucasians, historically, have been common in central Asia. So you cannot really say that some group 1-3000 years ago out of central Asia is specifically Caucasian or oriental. It might be either, it might be an indeterminate mixture of the 2.

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Well, I didn't use Caucasian particularly because of this difficulty. I figured it was far easier to refer to language than race. Turkic, Mongolic, etc. vs. Indo-European (probably Slavic or Germanic). It would also give an idea of where they came from.

I guess the thrust of my curiosity is were they originally from that area and just eventually became prominent or did they migrate from somewhere else (I'm talking about the general timeframe of mid-late Roman history, obviously everyone came from somewhere else)?

Veles said:

From this accout we know the only 3 "Hunnic" words that survived, which are (TLO, check it out) strava, medos and kamos. And they seem to be pretty obviously Slavic. Strava is a feast, held in honor of the dead before cremation. The name Stravinsky comes from it. Medos or Med is an old honey based beer-like drink, somewhat similiar to mead. And Kamos, which Priscus tells is made of barley, could propbably be kvas, a drink popular to these day.

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While the Slavic theory is interesting, these words sound exactly like the kinds of words one would borrow if they borrowed Slavic customs (especially foods and drinks). It's unfortunately not very conclusive other than to say there was a good deal of interaction between the two groups.

Well, I didn't use Caucasian particularly because of this difficulty. I figured it was far easier to refer to language than race. Turkic, Mongolic, etc. vs. Indo-European (probably Slavic or Germanic). It would also give an idea of where they came from.

I guess the thrust of my curiosity is were they originally from that area and just eventually became prominent or did they migrate from somewhere else (I'm talking about the general timeframe of mid-late Roman history, obviously everyone came from somewhere else)?

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I don't think you really gain much of any understanding from language. It's too mutable.

Cutlass said:

I don't think you really gain much of any understanding from language. It's too mutable.

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The fact it is mutable is why it is so great as a tertiary source(Tertiary is it? or Secondary? ). We can discern things about peoples societies from their language, as well as basic understanding on their history.

For an on-topic example, from those 3 hunnic words which sound quite similar to Slavic, we can infer that the Huns had contact with Slavic tribes at some point.

But I think the point Louis was trying to make was that it makes much more sense to define tribes by their language rather than genealogy/ethnicity/race as language=culture and the latter 3 doesn't tell us anything we want to know.

More or less, although it's also out of a belief that race is a very subjective social construct so it's not often all that helpful in telling the origin of a people. This is even more true if the Huns were a mixtures of peoples over time.

Cutlass said:

I don't think you really gain much of any understanding from language. It's too mutable.

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I don't think you really gain much of any understanding from race. It's too made-up.

Do we have any material culture we can tie to the Huns?

ParkCungHee said:

Do we have any material culture we can tie to the Huns?

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Supposedly, yes, in the Danubian Plain. It's pretty much just gravesites.

You say supposedly?

It's material culture in premodern Outer Europe. There's always an asterisk next to it.

Veles is proof that not all Eastern Europeans are insane nationalists. We even had a civil discussion about the 'origins' of the Huns.

Thanks, bro. Actually, I like to play pretty insane nationalist on here sometimes

Anyways, I'm not saying Huns were 'Slavonic'. Pretty surely they were not, not exclusively at least. Note how whenever some feature resembling Slavic is mentioned, Priscus called it Scythian. Which coincides with later Greek tradition of calling Scythian everything (among other things) Slavic and Russian. He even implies that Attila himself has a Scythian origin. It's pretty obvious that Huns were very mixed Eurasian mish-mash. Both good and fair forest living-folk ("proto-Slavs", Goths, Balts, Finnics) and wrong and bad steppe-dwelling dudes, which adopted the superior culture of the Slavs forest and vice versa.

Good example are the Magyars, which are a Finno-Ugric Uralic tribe, that unlike all their Finnic bros abandoned thier traditional forest lifestyle and adopted horseriding from the bordering "Turko-Mongloic" nomads and generally followed thier unlawful ways.

In a way, symbolically, Huns were related to Mongols and Tatars and Avars and Magyars and Bulgars and Khazars and Patzinaks and Cumas and all that other Gog and Magog pillaging steppe scum.

A good deal of Russian (and Slavonic in general) folk-songs were about whacking them steppe dogs.

Anyways, people Y U NO see the obvious: Huns=Hungary. Period

Dachs said:

Most of the claims that certain groups were speaking Slavic or weren't - most notably the Antes - rely on claims of geographic proximity to later Slavic-speaking groups (worse than useless) or tonal proximity of certain words to later Slavic words (not definitive at all for obvious reasons).

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Why the hesitation about Antes being Slavic? Ouenedai, btw, were mentioned earlier by Ptolemy in 2 century AD as living in Vistula basin. Later Venedai, Wends were pretty solidly associanted with Slavs all the way into Late Medieval period. Vene, Venemaa, Venelainen is also Finnic for Russians.

Jordanes groups Venedai, Sklavenoi and Anati as being the same thing. We don't have any substantial info on Antes, besides names of thier leaders, and they all looks pretty legitly Slavic: Ardagast (Radagast was a Slavic god, as well as Pirogast), Kelagast (could be Kologost, -gost, -gast is common suffix), Mezamir (Mejamir absolutely legit Slavic name), Boz, Hilbudios...

These are not overwhelmingly solid arguments, but still if etymology is all we got and it's Slavic and we have contemporary authors thinking Antes were Slavic then it looks rather convincing, imo. In Soviet historiography Antes are regarded as the ancestors of the SLavic component of modern non-northern looking Slavs like Bulgarians and Macedonians, and partly Romanians and Moldovans.

Dachs said:

Supposedly, yes, in the Danubian Plain. It's pretty much just gravesites.

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I'm surprised no one has tried to collect DNA in that case and attempt to create a genetic profile.

Louis XXIV said:

I'm surprised no one has tried to collect DNA in that case and attempt to create a genetic profile.

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What use would that be?

Other than 'for teh lulz', it coulda given us general info on thier ethnicity. Of course it's all vague and stuff, but there *are* differences in Indo-European, Finnic, Turkic and Mongolic haplogroups.