> ****GK: George, I agree with the thrust of your basic
> argumentation, and the following comment is strictly
> from memory. Acc. to De administrando imperio, the
> Pecheneg province of "Gila" adjoined "Turkey"
> (Constantine's name for the Turkic (perhaps largely
> Khazar/Kabar though also "Kun") component of the
> Hungarian complex at the timed). This important (at
> the time largely autonomous and later assimilated)
> Turkic component, rather than the Pechenegs,
> controlled Transylvania in the late 10th c. AFAIK. The
> Gila Pechenegs were then in Moldavia I think.
At the Pruth river. In those quotations I prepared for Marius (giving
an URL in a previous message today), the judgment, i.e., the
"measurement" (distances) is taken into account carefully by
some authors, esp. one who wrote lengthy paragraphs on this
topic, by taking into consideration what Constantine & al. wrote
about the Patzinakia provinces, i.e., how far away they were from
other countries of that time.
The Hungarian confederates did have the Kavaroi component,
i.e. a Khazar group (as pointed out by Constantine), but the names
of the three tribes are unknown. Constantine wrote however that
those three tribes *led* all the rest of the Hungarian called tribes
(and in the "battle order" of their names, Constantine says the
tribe of the Megyers were on the second place after the Nekes
(Nyeks). Corroborating various other data, today we know that
virtually all Hungarian tribes had a leading population part made
of Turkic people. Even the earliest Hungarian chronicler who's
chronicle has been preserved, that of Anonymus, mentions the
diglossy of Hungarians in the first century. I.e., the Hungarians'
"own" Turkic elements were the Onogurs. And as far as we know,
both Khazars and Onogurs belonged linguistically to the Ogu*r*ic
branch of "Türkistan", whereas their cousins the Petcheneks to
the Ogu*z*ic branch. The Cumans somewhere between, or rather
Oguz themselves. This is illustrated for example by the fact that
the Hungarian word meaning "ox" is ökör -- i.e. with a /r/, and not
with an /z/ as is the case, say, in Turkey Turkish: öküz.
So, up to the arrival of the Cumans, "Turkey", i.e. Hungary of the
10th century/11th century had three main groups of Turkic
extraction. (Actually several other as well, but those are less known
and of lesser importance. Such as the Berendeys; the Khwarezmians
etc. It is also possible that some of the Hungarians in the 10th
century were in fact... Varangians -- since, who came along either
with Arpad's tribes or with the Petcheneks or with both, since there
is at least one of Arpad's grandees who had a weird name fitting
that of the Varangians in Russia: Kulpun. And several antroponymic
and esp. toponymic occurrences have been preserved until today in
the Hungarian language: Kölpény. And, after the defeat of the
rival Translyvanian lords ruling in Alba Iulia, the kings used the
Petcheneks in the defence network systems at the frontiers -- along
with Vlachs (Romanians). The toponymy and hydronymy along the
then frontier are eloquent.)
George