Romanian,
I've read that the Székely you mention speak an archaic form of Hungarian even though I've never seen any written samples of it. However, the books I 've seen that the Romanian government prints for its Hungarian minority seem to be written in standard Hungarian.
The famous Romanian gymnist and Olympic gold medal winner, Nadia Comenici, looks to me like she might be an ethnic Hungarian or a good part Hungarian even though I don't know that for a fact. Her las name could be a Romanianized form of a Magyar name.
The Székely population (in Eastern Transylvania) has retained more of the ancient Magyar customs than the Hungarians in Hungary proper, although as I know, they were originally a Turkic ethnic group which acquired Hungarian around the time of the Hungarian settlement. They do speak a more archaic version of Hungarian, although they use Standard Hungarian in writing (it is similar to the relationship between Schwytzertütsch and Standard German in Switzerland). This is due to the fact that they used to be, and to some extent still are, more conservative and isolated (up to a certain time in the past they did not even marry with non-Székely's, even if they spoke the same language). Also, they were the ones who preserved the old runic writing for the longest time before it became definitively replaced with Latin script. Further eastwards, in Moldavia, there is another Hungarian ethnic group, the Csángó (I don't know the Romanian name for them). They are even more archaic in both their speech and customs.
As for Nadia Comaneci, I think her name is more Slavic-sounding than Hungarian. There have been ethnic Hungarian gymnasts from Romania though, one I remember the name of is Ekaterina Szabó, she was active in the eighties, as I remember, although she was not so famous as Nadia.
Travis,
What you are referring to seems to me to be the extreme right-wing propaganda that is unfortunately still alive and well among the extreme rightist Hungarian emigrants, mainly in the USA (they are called the Hungarists). It is extremely anti-semitic and voices the nastiest possible theories about a worldwide anti-Hungarian conspiration (including Jews, freemasons, etc.). It has some influence in Hungary as well, but its proponents here are more noisy than they are numerous. However, it is a fact that the majority of the people in Hungary do not subscribe to such theories, and they find them repulsive. What bothers me a little though, is that a part of Hungarian society has become more xenophobic and anti-semitic in the last few years. On the other hand, Hungarian culture owes a lot to the minorities it used to co-exist with during its history. According to a census in 1910, about 50 per cent of the population of the former Kingdom of Hungary was non-Hungarian, but belonged to one of the following groups: Slovak, Croatian, Serbian, Romanian, German, Ruthenian or Polish.
I agree with Brennus - there are definitely some Hungarians out there with some Asian traits. There was a radio presenter in Adelaide (Australia) who was Hungarian and he had a flat face, dark hair, a tinge of yellow to his skin and Asian eyes.
Coincidentally, I had a friend whose father was Finnish. He was tall with strawberry blonde hair but he had Asian eyes. I suppose this could be said with some Russians as well...
Easterner, yes, I've heard the same thing about the Székely, that is, that they possibly may be not exactly ethnically Magyar per se, but rather are possibly descended from one of the Turkic groups that the original Magyars (that is, not the Hungarian population today, which is highly mixed with the preexisting Slavic population which existed before the Magyars entered what is now Hungary) were associated with while they moved westwards, who happened to take up the Hungarian language, as you said. Of course, that is but one of the more reasonable theories about the origins of the Székely, that is, the ones which aren't simply nationalist propaganda or like, but even still, but it still has not been really verified per se.
Frances: >>Coincidentally, I had a friend whose father was Finnish. He was tall with strawberry blonde hair but he had Asian eyes. I suppose this could be said with some Russians as well...<<
Yes, the Finns originally had Mongoloid traits too, although they mixed with the Baltic peoples before they settled in what is now Finnland. As for the Russians, many of them have a Tartar ancestry. Sometimes this gives them (especially women) a very delicate complexion. Many Russians and especially South Ukrainians have definite Tartar features, meaning dark hair and almond-shaped eyes, first of all at and near the Crimean Peninsula.
As for Hungarians, I think the more isolated they have been, the more Asian traits they have preserved. However, when in Budapest, you may feel like being in Germany, because most inhabitants of the capital have a German ancestry and look accordingly. Budapest was mostly German-speaking until well into the 19th century, with a lot of Serb and Slovak settlers as well. This melting-pot character is reflected in the surnames as well, apart from common Hungarian surnames like Nagy ("big"), Kovács ("smith"), Szabó ("tailor"), Juhász ("shepherd) and the like, you meet many foreign-sounding names as well, perhaps more so than in Romania or Serbia, for example. The name of the present Prime Minister (Ferenc Gyurcsány) is of Slovak origin, and that of the President (Ferenc Mádl) is German. You will meet many examples of this in phone directories, even if there was a wave of "magyarisation" of foreign-sounding surnames in the 1920's and 1930's.
Easterner - true not all Hungarians look Asian. On the flipside, I grew up with many Hungarians (Cordas, Molnar, Szoke) and they were all blonde/light brown haired with green-blue or hazel eyes.
I suppose Hungary is like every other European country with intermixing.
Coincidentally Kovac is also "Smith" in Serbian etc. As for Ference Madl, Madl sounds Czech to me.
And don't forget the Farkas either!
Hi gang
Don't forget that the Mongols almost killed out everybody in Hungary in 1241. I doubt many present-day Hungarians actually have 9th-century Magyar ancestry.
Granted, the ancestry of the Szeklers remains a mystery (please refer to the wikipedia article).
the evil nerd
Brennus,
"The famous Romanian gymnist and Olympic gold medal winner, Nadia Comenici, looks to me like she might be an ethnic Hungarian or a good part Hungarian even though I don't know that for a fact. Her las name could be a Romanianized form of a Magyar name"
She was born in a city in Transilvania, but she is Romanian, both parents being Romanian, but I can't tell you anything about her last name.
Re Comaneci possibly being something other than Romanian, I have no idea what does or doesn't sound like a Romanian last name, but if Comaneci isn't Romanian, might it be from whatever country has names that end in "-ich"? I'm thinking of names such as "Kuzmanich" (how it's spelled in an English transliteration).
-ic (pronounced "-ich") is Serb, Croat, Bosnian, Slovenian. The name Kuzmanovic is a Serbian family name - very Orthodox sounding. Comaneci sounds very different. A lot of Romanian names end in -escu, eg popescu, florinescu
evilnerd,
That's right, Hungary lost almost 80 per cent of its population during the Mongol invasion, and the repopulation was done through settlement of Germans and Slavs, but there was still a Hungarian-speaking population remaining, otherwise the language would not have survived. The same occurred, although to a much lesser degree, during the Turkish conquest, which lasted from 1526 till 1686. It mainly affected the population of the Southern Plains (this was the area mostly conquered by the Turks, comprising the greatest part of present-day Hungary). It had to be repopulated with Hungarians from the highlands, then South Slavs, and the number of Romanians in Transylvania also increased. It is curious that the language survived all through these conquests, although the population who spoke it often changed drastically. Two proofs that present-day Hungarian is a continuation of the language spoken by the ancient Magyars are an old prayer to Mary and a funeral speech, which are still intelligible.
Sorry, it is not a prayer to Mary, but a lament made to sound like the Virgin Mary bemoaning the death of her son.
Nadia Comaneci was born in 1961 in Onesti, Moldova, Romania. Her parents are both Romanian, father Gheorghe Comaneci, mother Stefania Comaneci
Coman or Comaneci, Comanescu - are very common Romanian names.
She currently lives in Norman, Okla. US , where she is a gymnastic coach at her husband Bart Conner's Gymnast Academy.
Her coach's name sounded Romanian though
"Her coach's name sounded Romanian though "
what do you mean? her couch ?