The Hungarians are the only nation in Europe who had their own writing, that may be called a writing, which had not been received from others before they accepted Christianity. This indicates that they were literate before they were converted to Christianity. Thus labeling the Hungarians as an uncivilized, nomadic nation before they took up Christianity is inaccurate as an uncivilized nation has no writing, least of all an alphabet. In this respect, the Hungarians may be viewed as linguistically more sophisticated than the Greeks and the Romans, who had no letters of their own. The Greeks received their letters from the Phoenicians and the Romans took theirs partly from the Greeks and partly from the Etruscans. Comparing the Phoenician, Greek and Roman letters this becomes instantly obvious.

NUMERICAL ROVÁS

The letters of the Hungarian rovás cannot be compared with the letters of any other known writing. The assumption is that the Hungarians created their own letters very early. The figures of the Hungarian numerical rovás resemble the Roman numerical figures, which seem to point to a common origin.

The greater part of Roman culture was inherited from the Etruscans and not from the Greeks. When the Etruscans conquered Rome, members of the Etruscan Tarquinius family became Roman kings. Later, the Romans managed to drive them out and conquered Etruria, and the Etruscans consequently became assimilated by the Latins. This did not hinder but furthered the Romans in taking over and learning the much higher culture of the Etruscans.

When studied further, the Hungarian rovás numbers show much more similarity to the Etruscan runic numbers than to that of the Romans.

As of yet, no numerical figure has been found that shows any similarity to the Etruscan and Hungarian figures of the number 50.

This poses an intriguing question, as current theory states the Hungarians came to Europe only 1,100 years ago. If this is so, they could not have learned the numbers of the Etruscans who had already vanished by the 9th c. AD. But they could have learned only the Roman numerals. The most logical explanation is to suppose that the Etruscans and Hungarians had the same origin in primeval times, or that the Hungarians were already in Europe when the Etruscans were there. In this paradigm, either the Hungarians received their numerical figures from the Etruscans or the Etruscans from the Hungarians.

There are still places in Hungary where the Hungarian people use the Hungarian rovás numbers, although the rovás letters went out of practice approximately 250 years ago.

Because Christianity, later the Austrian rulers did not look favorably at the "pagan" Hungarian letters, both tried to outroot them. However nobody tried to eliminate the rovás numbers, as it was believed that they originated from the Romans. This is why the Hungarian rovás writing is known only from the few records that remain. The rovás numbers were in use in Hungary up to recent times.

Hungarian rovás letters and numbers proceed from right to left rather than from left to right, as was the case with most ancient writings. Even the shape of the letters facilitates writing his this direction. There is another natural reason for this that will be discussed later. This will be used as proof of the primeval origin of the Hungarian writing, called rovás.

The ancient Hungarian system of numbers was based upon the decimal numerical system. The remnants of the ancient numerical system that was based on six numbers are the 12 hours, the 12 months and also the "dozen" which consists of 12 units, which is 2x6. In the olden days the Hungarians had a coin called "hatos" (the sixter), which had a value of six "krajcár" (pence). This is another proof. The ancient Sumerians, who lived 5-6,000 years ago in Mesopotamia, knew no other system than that based on six numbers. Considering that this numerical system of counting was much more difficult than the decimal system, it was natural that the decimal numerical system gained ground and took the place of the systems based on both the numbers six and eight. The Sumerians, besides using different counting means, were able to solve problems in arithmetic without any supporting tools that today only some geniuses can achieve.

Returning to the Hungarian numerical system, we can see that the numerical signs compose a logical unity that are connected to each other; and, without mixing them up, it cannot be changed.

The Etruscans and even more so the Romans, later made changes according to their own purposes though they did it later. For instance, "C" = centum = 100, "M" = mille = 1,000, but this disrupted the logical unity.

Hence, it follows with iron logic that the Hungarian numerical system is the original, ancient numerical system. Even 3,000 years after the disappearance of the Etruscan system and the Roman numerals are no longer commonly used, the farmers and shepherds of the Hungary maintained it up to contemporary times. There are changes and minor deviations in the Hungarian numerical system according to the different regions in Hungary, but the general numerical system always remained the one as presented here.

A very strong proof of the genuineness of the Hungarian numerical system is the absolute, natural base of its origin.

(See, Ed. note)

The foundation of the numerical system, based on the numbers five and ten in ancient days was composed of the five-ten fingers of the hand, just as today we count and show numbers with the help of our fingers the way cavemen did millions of years ago. The minor numbers in the primeval system - the numbers from one to four - were marked by simple vertical lines. These four vertical lines signify the four fingers of the hand, while the diagonal lines signify the thumb; the thumb and its position is the number five and it is the oldest form of the number five. This took the shape of the sign shown under "d" on drawing No.2 by uniting with the side line of the number four, and only later took the shape shown under the "e". This number was originally similar to the figure shown under "f", later taking the shape of the sign shown in "g". All this happened in the primeval days of mankind, but we still can see these stages in the Hungarian numerical system. Anyone who has studied ethnography knows that the development of such basic methods comes from the most ancient layers of human culture. While the Romans did not know how such a "/" number five had developed into a "V", many of the Hungarian people still notch it this way with a diagonal line in some parts of the country.

With this in mind, it can be said that the Hungarian people have kept the primeval shape of the number five through the ages. According to this, it is clear that not only did the Hungarian rovás numbers not develop from the Roman numbers, but they are more than ten thousand years older than the Roman numbers.

(See, Ed. note)
 

A further question is how did the symbols of the Hungarian rovás numbers get the shape that can be seen on our drawing. The reason for this is that the rovás were marked on sticks cut into a square shape or on narrow little boards. The practice of notching was used when making records or settling accounts between two persons. They split the stick lengthwise, accurately into two pieces. One part was kept by the first party, the other by the second party, that is, the creditor and the debtor. To protect these documents against falsification whenever it became necessary to mark new debts - be it money, food, drinks, cattle, or anything else - they placed the two sticks or boards beside one another, and cut the rovás in such a way that they crossed both parts at once, as is shown in drawing no.3 under "a".

Falsification was impossible because the runes would not have matched when placed together.

Hungarians still use this notching of debts, especially in Transylvania. I have seen them myself in my younger years in restaurants and bakeries. The sticks were hung up in an orderly row. At the end of each stick there was some sign which referred to the name of the buyer. In this way they knew to whom the stick belonged. They applied the runes as shown on drawing no.3 under the letters "b" and "c". (This explains the old Hungarian saying "There is much on his 'rovás'" which meant somebody had a large amount of debts. Figuratively it also meant that he had many sins.)

The horizontal lines, as they appear on the drawings indicated the edge of the sticks; and, at the same time, these horizontal lines explain why it is customary to write the Roman numbers between two horizontal lines even today, as the letter "e" shows on drawing no.3. Yet the reason for this is not known by people who write Roman numbers this way, and even the Romans did not know it. Possibly the Etruscans did.

Additionally, in order that the carving of numbers should be easier to read, they put two periods between every ten numbers.

HISTORICAL TRACES AND RELICS OF THE HUNGARIAN ROVÁS

Attila, king of the Huns demanded Theodosius, the East Roman emperor, to hand over to him the Hun deserters who remained in Bizantium. When Priscus Rhetor, ambassador of the Emperor, appeared before the king of the Huns affirming that there were no more Hun deserters on the territory of Byzantium, the king summoned a scribe to read the names of the Hun deserters from a note. In Priscus Rhetor's diary of his journey, he tells many positive stories about the Huns and their king, which indicates that the Huns were by no means a wild and uncivilized people, as the falsifiers of history like to make them appear. The reason we cannot doubt Priscus' report is the fact that the Huns were the most dangerous enemies of his country, therefore he would have had more reason to hate than to praise them, and supposedly he would have preferred to write bad things about them. Irrespective of this, we also know that Christians at that time had a great deal of antipathy toward non-Christian nations.

From Priscus' narration it also becomes obvious that the Huns had official scribes who kept written files even of the deserters of the army. Although Priscus does not mention what letters were used for the list of names, one can be assured, that a nation which was able to organize such a large empire in a rather short time surely did not need to learn to write from others.

In 1488 János Thúróczi writes in his Chronicle that the Székelys (Siculi) wrote with their own letters and used to carve them on sticks. Bonfini, an Italian author in the 15th century affirms also that the Székelys notched their letters on small pieces of wood and that with a few signs they conveyed a lot of information.

In 1653 István Szamosi, who was born in Transylvania writes in one of his works issued in Padua, Italy, that the Székelys did not always write their letters inherited from their ancestors with ink, but carved them with the point of a knife on sticks planed into a square shape, and that the letters often stuck together. In ancient times they wrote with ink made of acorns on parchment, and on the fine, paper-like white bark of the birch-tree. This was excellent writing material as it was as thin as paper, and it was even possible to bind this "paper" into books similar to those we have today.

In the 16th century, tradesmen working on the church of Csíkszentmihály, notched their names on one of the beams they way carpenters or bricklayers still do in order to preserve their names for posterity. Although the original inscriptions were destroyed in the second half of the 18th century, probably because of careless repair or purposeful destruction, its copy was preserved by Imre Dezserinszky in one of his works issued in 1753.

The rovás alphabet and the rules of abbreviation were kept by many writers in past centuries. Most of these writers took information from one another over the years. One exception is a rovás alphabet written on parchment and discovered in the Dietrichstein Library of Nicholsburg. This was sold at an auction in 1933 in the city of Lucerne, Switzerland, and appears to have been produced prior to 1480. This document, beyond a doubt, came from an entirely different source.

There was also an inscription in runic writing in a small Unitarian Church in Transylvania which was kept intact until the outbreak of World War II. We do not know whether it survived the war and the Russian occupation or not; however there are many photographs of this inscription. The date of the inscription was 1668.

There was another very interesting runic inscription in Constantinople which was later destroyed. A delegation of the Hungarian King Ulászló was sent to Selim, the Turkish sultan in 1515. One of the jockeys of the delegation, Tamás Székely, carved an inscription in runic writing on one of the stones of the stable's outer walls. The building was destroyed, but in 1553, when Emperor Ferdinand sent his ambassadors to sultan Sulejman, a member of the embassy, Hans Dernschwamm, saw and copied it. This copy was discovered by Ferenc Barbinger in 1913 in the family archives of the Fuggers, and believing that it was some ancient Turkish inscription in which Arabic letters were not yet used, he sent it for deciphering to William Thomsen, the world-renowned savant of the old-Turkish writings. He instantly recognized that it was not a text written in Old-Turkish, but written in ancient Hungarian letters. He succeeded in reading it in part, while the full explanation was given by Gyula Sebestyén, to whom Thomsen sent the copy.

The most interesting relic in runic writing, however, is a calendar using rovás, discovered in Bologna, Italy. An Italian scientist, Luigi Fernando Marsigli, while serving in the army in Transylvania in 1690, saw a Székely calendar. According to the remarks of Marsigli it was made for the newly baptized Székelys with the ancient rovás-letters on a stick. The scientist Marsigli was so interested in it that he copied it all and later took the copy to Italy, where it was discovered by Endre Veress in 1913 in the University Library of Bologna. Marsigli's above mentioned remarks illustrate that even in 1690 there still were Székelys who practiced the ancient Hungarian religion.

Although the rovás was in use for ages, yet its relics were mostly incidentally discovered and spread abroad by scientists of our times. This is due to the fact that this writing has been constantly persecuted as a remnant of pagan times. Later, it was the Imperial Regime to present the Hungarians as wild, uncivilized people. On the one hand, they could undermine the consciousness and resistance of the Hungarians, and on the other hand, that could justify their action before the nations of Europe. For these reasons it was necessary to exterminate and germanize the Hungarians, and it was important to settle foreigners into Hungary. It was very unpleasant for the Austrian regime that the Hungarian nation was literate before her conversion to Christianity, and furthermore, that they also had a writing of their own. This explains why it was their intention to uproot it from public knowledge by any possible means. Stealthily they sent secret commissioners to trace and destroy everything that proved the ancient culture of the Hungarians. One of these was Strommer, a man born in Austria, who had learned to speak Hungarian perfectly. The Emperor had managed to get a leading role in the Hungarian Academy of Science for Strommer under the name of Thallóczy; he used this name but never made this change of names official. It was natural that these gentlemen did not care to take note of the ancient Hungarian rovás-texts appearing on the wall of a stable in Constantinople or in the dusty archives of foreign libraries.

THE RULES OF ROVÁS WRITING

We are presenting the rules of the rovás according to two aspects. First as they appeared on old relics and notations and secondly as they developed conforming to contemporaneous requirements, both substantiated with strict, scientific research.

As already mentioned, the rows of rovás proceed from right to left, the reason for this is the following: nine-tenth of people are right-handed. Our Hungarian ancestors used a carving knife or some other sharp instrument to carve the letters onto sticks with four or sometimes even more sides. The carving was done with the right hand, the holding of the stick with the left hand.

It is just a natural consequence of the above that they started to carve on the right, free end of the stick, proceeding toward the left. And because this kind of rovás (lit.: carving) had been developed in very ancient, primeval times, the rows of the writing of most ancient peoples also proceed from right to left, except the Chinese, Japanese and Mongolian writings, whose rows read from the top down. According to the old data this style of writing occurred in the Hungarian rovás also, because the stick could be held in a vertical way for reading. Not only did the oriental peoples practice right to left writing, but very old Greek writings and writings of the Etruscans in Italy practiced this same writing direction.

When carving the letters onto a stick, once they reached the end of a row, they did not turn back to start the next row, but simply turned the stick to start the next row. This was actually on the other end, but the rows lead from right to left again. In case we would spread out the four sides of the stick, the rows would proceed in a snake-like line and the letters in every second line would stand upside down. This is the reason for similar row-leading on very old Greek or Old-Turkish writings on relics preserved on stone or copper tablets.

(See, Ed. note)

The rows on these also proceed in a snake-like line, and the letters stand upside down in every second row. When the ancient people started to apply their writings to flat sheets instead of on sticks, for a long time they did not find out how to interrupt the writing at the end of the row and start on the opposite end again, as we write today by ending the sentence with a period. They wanted to continue the rows without interruption, the way they were accustomed to when they used carved writing on sticks. They never thought of interrupting the rows, and returning to the same edge of the sheet. Even on the sheet, they lead the rows in a snake-line, standing the letters in every second row upside down until they realized what they were doing and abandoned the custom. They then kept the letters facing the direction in which the rows were proceeding without standing them upside down. It was not until much later that they discovered that the rows could always be started on the same side of the sheet. We can see clearly on our drawing of the Old Greek writing shown in "C", that the "B" shaped letter, for instance, goes from right to left in the first row; but in the second row it goes from left to right, while the "M" shaped letter stands upside down in the second row, and in the third row, it stands upright again. Scientists call this kind of row-leading: "bustrofedon", that is "furrowing" way of row-leading. (See "a, b, c" on the drawing.) No one could understand nor explain why the ancient people turned letters upside down. Finally, a simple Hungarian farmer explained it to the Hungarian scientist, Gyula Sebestyén, because the farmer still practiced the old Hungarian rovás numbers. He showed the scientist how the stick must be turned for reading or carving letters or numbers. This way the numbers or letters will be upside down in every second row. But, if we turn the stick at reading too, we will see the runes in their proper position.

Gyula Sebestyén then wrote a book about this, and by his work, the scientists of the world learned the solution of this puzzle from a simple Hungarian farmer. But they keep silent, just as they have kept silent about the book of Gyula Sebestyén, "Rovás and Rovás writing".

In order to save space, when they arrived at the end of the row they did not divide the words according to syllables, but at any letter that happened to be at the end of the row. They could save space in rovás by carving the letters on top of each other, whenever possible. Of course, they did not exaggerate it and were careful that it should not make reading difficult nor disrupt its artistic appearance.

The ancient Hungarian language had a "K" and a "KH" sound. The latter, however, is pronounced only by the population of a few Hungarian villages in Slavonia. This explains why runic writing had two "K" letters. The first was used in the middle of the words, the second at the end of the words.

A very interesting way of saving space in the Hungarian rovás was the possibility of omitting vowels according to certain rules. Omitting vowels occurred in other ancient oriental writings as well, but caused much confusion. In the case of Hungarian runic writing, this did not disturb the writing nor the reading of it. Of course they did not omit a vowel where it might have caused confusion. Moreover, they write all vowels down when they were writing for an important occasion.

The rules are the following:

Since there are so many "e" and "é" sounds in the Hungarian language, these vowels can always be omitted. If no vowel was indicated in a word, it meant that "e" or "é" sounds were omitted. Neither these two vowels, nor other vowels, however, could be omitted from the end of a word or in case one vowel followed another. Examples: Instead of "gyermek" (child), they could write "gyrmk." But instead of "gyermeke" (his child) or "gyermekeim" (my children) they could write only "gyrmke", or "gyrmkeim". The other vowels appear several times in the same word. In such cases, we have to write the first vowel while the rest can be omitted, except at the end of the word or in case another vowel is standing beside it. Examples: instead of "házamban" (in my house) and "fogorvos" (dentist), you can write "házmbn" and "fogrvs", but instead of "házakba" (into the houses), "házaim" (my houses), "házatokba" (into your houses) you have to write "házkba", "házaim", "háztokba". Moreover, instead of "ökrökkel" (with oxen), you may write "ökrkkl", etc.

There are no capital letters, but we thicken the first letters of proper names.

We use the long sounding vowels (í, ó, ú, ő, ű), the "dz" and "dzs" sounds, the interpunctuations and the sign of "million" is used according to the latest agreements.

It is one of the characteristics of runic writing that, other than the sign "thousand", there are no horizontal lines in it, and this gives a beautiful and very artistic line-rhythm and because of this the rovás is one of the most appealing writings. Furthermore, if we write the letter between the two edge-lines, as was customary in the olden days, then it even looks like an ornament. The reason why rovás writing has no horizontal lines is because they would coincide with the veins of the wood as well as with the two edge-lines, that is, with the edges of the stick they write. On the ancient Greek inscription which we have shown here, there are some horizontal lines, yet there is noticeable effort to avoid them, which is another proof that the ancient form of this writing was carving applied on wood. Later when the ancestors of the Hungarians started to write on the bark of the birch-tree and on wash-leather, they developed variations in their letters which were more useful for that kind of writing. There are several such alphabets among the relics that were kept. These are not better than the older ones, but knowing the rules of omission and compressed writing, with a little practice one can write with the rovás faster than by using Latin letters.

THE SPREAD OF THE WORD "ROVÁS"

Without doubt the word "rovás" comes from the root-word "ró" (to carve), and from this many words have developed, such as róni, ródalni (to carve), rovat, rovátka (score) which the Hungarian people pronounce as rúni, and rú. The Germanic word RUNA, which meant writing especially when carved on wood, came from the Hungarian language although the letters of the RUNA writing also have a Roman origin. It is certain that this word has been received by the Germanic people from a Northern Finno-Ugrian people related to the Hungarians. Later they applied it to the Roman letters too as at that time, carving in wood was customary everywhere, and that's why they carved the newer letters according to old customs in such a way that whenever possible they eradicated the horizontal lines from it.

There are scarcely any nations in Europe who did not use the notching of numbers and letters on wood. In some cases they practiced it a long time ago, in other cases they still use it. But the expression for "carving" in the languages referred to as Gyula Sebestyén has pointed out, came undoubtedly from the Hungarian language and was used in the older way of pronunciation of the word "rovás" (carving). In the old Hungarian language and Hungarian dialects of even today the word rovás still exists in the form of "ravás". In the regions of Upper-Csík and Gyergyó, Erdély (Transylvania), they even pronounce it "rabus" and "rebus". There are some people, however, who affirm that this word was received by the Székelys from the Rumanians, but the Rumanians pronounce the word this way only where they live closely together with the Hungarians of Csík and Gyergyó. Otherwise, the Rumanians pronounce it everywhere as "ravas". Therefore it is obvious that they took over the old Hungarian word "ravás" a long time before, and this is the way they generally use it. The word "rebus" was learned later by those in that small area where the Hungarians pronounce it this way. Those who suppose that the Székelys adopted it from the Rumanians contend that this word exists in Latin too, although there it means "secret" or something "puzzling". (Hungarians use this word in the form taken from the Latin up to this day, expressing the meaning "puzzle" or "picture puzzle"). But in old Hungarian documents the word "rebus" means numbers written with rovás, also rovás used for taxes. Since this "Latin" word has such a meaning only in Hungary proves that the Latin language - which was the official language for a time in Hungary - adopted it along with other words as well from the Hungarian language of the common citizens. These were not used outside of Hungary. It is a well known fact that taxes in Hungary were collected according to "tax rovás" carved on sticks, which was called "rebus" in the Latin language used in Hungary. In the old Germanic, the word RUNA meant writing but it had a meaning of something "mysterious", 'puzzling".

Now we find the variation of the word, "rovás", with the sound "e" in the Székely dialect, pronounced "rebus". The pronunciation with "b" was customary in the olden days, for this can be proved by the pronunciation of the word, "rovás", with a "b" by people who learned the trace of the carved alphabet from the Hungarians. The Serbians pronounce the carving of numbers, rovás, and also, rabos, while further South toward the borders of Albania, they pronounce it rabus.

The Kaj-Croatians, Slovenians, and Czechs know only the pronunciation rovas. All the southern Germans, Bavarians, and Austrians pronounce the same word with "b" and use the form of rubisch, rabusch. Yet, most surprising, is that the Greek people also know of the carving of numbers on sticks and they call it rabaszi. Then, as mentioned by Gyula Sebestyén, among the natives of Ireland the older Irishmen do not read their prayers from rosaries but from a "runic-stick".

Now, how could all this be possible if the Hungarians rode into Europe only a thousand years ago as and uncivilized, tent-dwelling, nomadic people? It is clear that this is a case of the world's greatest falsification of history.

By studying the history of "rovás", the theory of the "Asiatic", "nomadic" origin of the Hungarians collapses like a castle built of cards. There are hundreds and hundreds of documents from the folklore, anthropology and history of the territory which prove that the Hungarians are the ancient inhabitants of Europe.

How else could so many people in Europe, from Ireland to the Greek Peninsula, learn from the Hungarians the carving of numbers and the expression for carving, which is rovás? How could they, if the Hungarians were not in Europe at that time? How could the Roman numbers (partly similar to the Hungarian rovás numbers) exist in Europe before the "coming of Hungarians to Europe?" Suppose we could accept this absurd statement, the problem remains: Where did the Latin words, rebus, and rubrica (puzzle and rubric), come from? How could it be possible that the Hungarian runic numbers agree much more closely with the runic numbers of the Etruscans, who disappeared thousands of years before, than with those of the Romans? Is it not absolutely clear what the answer is? both the Etruscans as well as the Hungarians, are ancient inhabitants of Europe! The words, rebus and rubrica, were inherited by the Romans from the Etruscans, who pronounced the name of rovás with "b". Other people who were in contact with the Hungarians took over the carving of numbers and the expression of carving (rovás) from the Hungarians, and this was done not lately, nor all of a sudden, but in the most ancient of times through thousands of years. Jules Martha, a French scientist, has demonstrated in his book, "La Langue Etrusque", that the language of the Etruscans is related to the Hungarian and Finnish languages.

It can also be proven that there were other people in Italy who were related to the Etruscans, whose language also became Latinized but only later during the Roman rule. These were the Sabini and Siculi people. Before dealing briefly with these, let us mention why the word, rovás (carving), in its different forms of pronunciation had the meaning of the mysterious. The reason is clear. In the eyes of the illiterate (and they greatly outnumbered the literate in ancient times) the fact that someone could learn the thoughts of others from notched, written lines, or someone was able to communicate his own thoughts and intentions to others with the help of such signs. This seemed to be unintelligible, mysterious. Therefore the rovás, in his eyes, became something magical, something mysterious.

Returning to the aboriginal population of Italy, it is by all means very conspicuous that while the Romans called the Siculi-s (for Sikels, the name Sikel is also mentioned by Homer), consequently, the old Latin document call the Seklers, Siculi. This was also noticed by the great English scientist, Edward Freeman (The History of Sicily, Oxford, 1891. I. pg.130), in which he marvellingly remarked that he could not find a trace of the Sicilian origin of the Székely (Seklers). He mentions, however, another similar surprisingly identical expression which existed both in Sicily and in the time of the Romans in Somogy county, Hungary. At both places there was a city called Segesta. Freeman, however, did not know what the Hungarian linguists affirmed without doubt, based on linguistic and folklore-data, that the Seklers came from the Trans-Danubian region, from the country-side of Göcsej. On the spot of the ancient Roman Segesta today we find the city of Segesd (lower and upper Segesd) in Somogy county, but in Transylvania, in the land of the Seklers, still today there are the localities Segesd and Segesvár in Nagyküküllõ county.

The reason Freeman could find no trace of the Sicilian origin of the Seklers is natural since things happened in a reverse way. It was not the Seklers who came from Sicily, but a part of the Trans-Danubian Seklers emigrated to Italy in ancient times long before the origin of Rome. There is a trace of the emigration of the Seklers to Transylvania in the Csaba legend. This emigration is considered to have happened after the downfall of the Hun Empire. Others affirm that it occurred after the time of the Avar Empire, when a part of the ancient Magyar population fled to the East from the forceful conversion of Charlemagne and the immigration of the Slavs and Germans.

We know from historical notations that the Vienna plains (Marchfeld today) and the mountain region south of the Vienna plains, was called Hunnia in the time of Charlemagne. The Huns, Avars, Magyars, Besenyõs, Kuns, and even the Finns, and Estonians were referred to as Hun. Also, we know from historical notations that the part of the ancient population who did not yet accept Christianity was expelled ("unde expulsi sunt hunni"), and in their place settled people who had accepted Christianity earlier, mostly Germans from Bavaria.

Historical documents mention the Seculs, who in ancient times lived in the region where later Rome was established, under the name Sikel, or Sikul. The documents mention them also as "aborigines" that is, aborigines. First fleeing from the Latin rule, they wandered first to Calabria and then to Sicily who received its name from them. (Formerly this area was called Trinacria, but upon coming under Roman rule it was Latinized.)

After the Hungarians were liberated from Austrian rule a complete literature was developed dealing with the ancient, European origin of the Hungarians. For instance Lajos Marjalaki Kiss: Új Utakon (On New Roads), 1930, and others. There were disputes in the newspapers, in which the author of this book has also taken part. The result: It has been proven that the Hungarians are ancient inhabitants of Europe. The territory of the Hungarian language was much larger than the area in which Hungarians live today. The linguistic territories of the Finnish people, the Esthonians, and that of other nations belonged to the Hungarians, who live under Russian rule today. The cause of Hungary's demise was that it withstood Christianization attempts longer than the neighboring countries due to the strength of its ancient culture. When it finally succumbed to foreign pressures it was forced to deny its ancient "pagan" language.

Ed. note: The image files are from the Hungarian version of this book, Magyar Adorján, ŐS MAGYAR ROVÁSÍRÁS, Második Kiadás (Second Edition) Warren, 1970, page 10-11.

The first edition of this book was published in 1961. Since then, all Finno-Ugrian claims have been discredited. Some influence of one language over another is a natural occurrence when two peoples share a common border. However, both the Finns and the Hungarians have proven they are not related, as did Semino et al - among others.