--- Rick McCallister <
gabaroo6958@...> wrote:
> Supposedly it does mean "little father" and I've
> read
> it is from Germanic in popular sources --which
> generally
> tend to claim the Huns are Turkish, and those that
> don't tend to claim them as Mongols or some related
> Altaic people. They also link them to the Xiung-Nu,
> Ephthalites ("White Huns"), etc. Descriptions of
> Attila seem to describe someone of E. Turkish,
> Mongol
> or East Asian ancestry.
> But as Piotr points out, they seem to have been like
> an avalanche that picked anything and everything and
> incorporated it into their group.
> So it would not surprise me if they had Turkic,
> Mongolic,
> Iranian and Germanic elements plus any others they
> came in contact with
****GK: I don't think it's all that useful to view the
Huns as more of a "goulash" than other groups. I don't
see them as "picking up anything and everything"
except in the sense of political domination. The
Alans, for instance, were close associates for a long
time, as were various Germanic tribal groups. They may
all have been "political Huns" if you will, but they
were not "Huns" proper. There was such a thing as the
"Hunnish" language (Priscus), and Maenchen-Helfen's
analyses suggests it was PDC to some sort of Turkic
(or Altaic). Some "Huns" had Greek, Roman, Iranian
names, but that is not particularly relevant(Jordanes
points out the "barbarian" proclivity to borrow names
from other ethna). There is no 100% certainty as to
who the Huns were. But they were certainly not a
"goulash". There was a defining core which was just as
"Hunnish" as the Goths were "Gothic". It seems to have
existed well into the 6th century, and then
disarticulated and dissolved, assimilated by a variety
of other ethna.****
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