A new book on the Ural-Altaic language classification: ‘Towards Eurasian Linguistic Isoglosses: the Case of Turkic and Hungarian’

Abstract

In this review article, László Marácz introduces his recent book on a new approach to the Ural-Altaic language classification. The book entitled ‘Towards Eurasian Linguistics Isoglosses: the Case of Hungarian and Turkic’ (abbreviated as TELI) develops a theory of linguistic relations across language families based on the idea of linguistic isoglosses. Marácz argues against the traditional classification of Hungarian as an Uralic/Finno-Ugric language. According to him, there are no convincing arguments to justify a classification in this framework. Further, the Uralic/Finno-Ugric theory degenerates “deep” linguistic contacts between Hungarian and Turkic to secondary unidirectional borrowings from Turkic into Hungary. However, there are a number of lexical, morphological and syntactic parallels between Hungarian and Turkic which are of a more fundamental nature. Earlier Hungarian scholars have been
studying the history, archeology and languages of Central Asia and have pointed at Central Asia as the cradle of the Hungarians and their ancient Hungarian language. TELI revises and reinterprets earlier discoveries made by famous Turkologists, like Ármin Vámbéry.