From: alex_lycos
Message: 21675
Date: 2003-05-10
>I guess you cannot let alone ban/pan here. One must absolutely take a
> But the question refers to "ban", which in
> Hungarian is "bán" [ba:n]. And we know that
> this title (belonging in certain periods of time
> to high-rank nobility) was chiefly used in the
> Serbo-Croat areas and in the Hungarian
> neighboring provinces only (Croatia and
> certain Serbian areas were included in the
> Hungarian kingdom too). Romanians also
> had sort of a duke, "the ban", of their own
> only in the realm of Oltenia, starting in the
> 13th century -- possibly because
> the possession included the former banate
> of Severin (Szörényi Bánság), that belonged
> to Hungary and played some major role
> exactly on the eve of the creation of a greater
> important Romanian state between the
> Carpathians and the Danube -- a state that
> engulfed Oltenia too (the rulers of the greater
> state were at the same acknowledged feudal
> lords over some regions in Southern
> Transylvania as well)
>
> So, what kind of word is "ban"? Turkic (Avar
> or Protobulgarian)? Or Slavic? (I guess that
> Hungarians either borrowed it from the
> South Slavs or from the... Turkish language
> of the ruling class of the incipient Hungarian
> nation - 8th-9th centuries.)
>
> George