Page:A history of Hungarian literature.djvu/24

10 o in hot) the affix must contain a sound of the same kind. Not only are the words similar in the languages of the Ugrian race and the Hungarians, but also the grammatical rules. It is now proved that Hungarian is one of the Ugrian languages.

There are some scholars who do not accept this view of the origin of the Hungarian tongue, amongst others Arminius Vámbéry, the well-known Orientalist. His opinion is that Hungarian is derived from Turkish, and that the Ugrian elements in it are all of later date. It is true that the language contains a large number of important words, chiefly substantives, of Turkish origin, but they are borrowed words, and no more warrant our regarding Hungarian as a Turkish tongue than the considerable Romance element in English would justify us in calling it a Romance language.