Origins The precise date or origin of the script is unknown. Origins of the Turkic scripts are uncertain. According to some opinions, ancient Turkic runes descend from primaeval Turkic graphic logograms. Linguist
András Róna-Tas derives Old Hungarian from the
Old Turkic script, itself recorded in inscriptions dating from . Speakers of
Proto-Hungarian would have come into contact with Turkic peoples during the 7th or 8th century, in the context of the
Turkic expansion, as is also evidenced by numerous Turkic loanwords in Proto-Hungarian. All the letters but one for sounds which were shared by Turkic and Ancient Hungarian can be related to their Old Turkic counterparts. Most of the missing characters were derived by script internal extensions, rather than borrowings, but a small number of characters seem to derive from Greek, such as 'eF'. The modern Hungarian term for this script (coined in the 19th century), , derives from the verb ('to score') which is derived from old
Uralic, general Hungarian terminology describing the technique of writing ( 'to write', 'letter', 'knife, also: for carving letters') derive from Turkic, which further supports transmission via Turkic alphabets.
Medieval Hungary Epigraphic evidence for the use of the Old Hungarian script in medieval Hungary dates to the 10th century, for example, from
Homokmégy. The latter inscription was found on a fragment of a
quiver made of bone. Although there have been several attempts to interpret it, the meaning of it is still unclear. In 1000, with the coronation of
Stephen I of Hungary, Hungary, previously an alliance of mostly nomadic tribes, became a
kingdom. The
Latin alphabet was adopted as official script; however, Old Hungarian continued to be used in the vernacular. The runic script was first mentioned in the 13th century Chronicle of
Simon of Kéza, where he stated that the
Székelys may use the script of the
Blaks.
Johannes Thuróczy wrote in the
Chronica Hungarorum that the
Székelys did not forget the
Scythian letters and these are engraved on sticks by carving.
Early Modern period , 1483 The Old Hungarian script became part of
folk art in several areas during this period. In
Royal Hungary, Old Hungarian script was used less, although there are relics from this territory as well. There is another copysimilar to the Nikolsburg Alphabetof the Old Hungarian alphabet, dated 1609. The inscription from
Énlaka, dated 1668, is an example of the folk art use. There are a number of inscriptions ranging from the 17th to the early 19th centuries, including examples from
Kibéd,
Csejd,
Makfalva,
Szolokma,
Marosvásárhely,
Csíkrákos,
Mezőkeresztes,
Nagybánya,
Torda, Felsőszemeréd,
Kecskemét and
Kiskunhalas.
Scholarly discussion Hungarian script was first described in late
Humanist/
Baroque scholarship by
János Telegdy in his primer . Published in 1598, Telegdi's primer presents his understanding of the script and contains Hungarian texts written with runes, such as the
Lord's Prayer. In the 19th century, scholars began to research the rules and the other features of the Old Hungarian script. From this time, the name ('runic writing') began to re-enter the popular consciousness in Hungary, and script historians in other countries began to use the terms "Old Hungarian", , and so on. Because the Old Hungarian script had been replaced by Latin, linguistic researchers in the 20th century had to reconstruct the alphabet from historic sources.
Gyula Sebestyén, an ethnographer and
folklorist, and
Gyula (Julius) Németh, a philologist, linguist, and Turkologist, did the lion's share of this work. Sebestyén's publications, (
Runes and runic writing,
Budapest, 1909) and (
The authentic relics of Hungarian runic writing, Budapest, 1915) contain valuable information on the topic. Not all scholars agree with the Old Hungarian theory. The linguist and sociolinguist
Klára Sándor said in an interview that most of the romantic statements about the script appear to be false. According to her analysis, the origin of the writing is probably
runiform (and with high probability its origins are in the
western Turkic runiform writings) and it is not a different writing system and contrary to the sentiment the writing is neither Hungarian nor Székely-Hungarian; it is a Székely writing since there are no authentic findings outside the historic Székely lands (mainly today's
Transylvania); the only writing found around 1000 AD had a different writing system. While it may have been sporadically used in Hungary its usage was not widespread. The revived writing (in the 1990s) was artificially expanded with (various) new letters which were unneeded in the past since the writing was cleanly phonetic, or the long vowels which were not present back in the time. The shape of many letters were substantially changed from the original. She stated that no works since 1915 have reached the expected quality of the state of the linguistic sciences, and many were influenced by various agendas. The use of the script often has a political undertone as it is often used along with
irredentist or
nationalist propaganda, and they can be found from time to time in graffiti with a variety of content.
Popular revival , Hungary Beginning with Adorján Magyar in 1915, the script has been promulgated as a means for writing modern Hungarian. These groups approached the question of representation of the vowels of modern Hungarian in different ways. Adorján Magyar made use of characters to distinguish
a/
á and
e/
é but did not distinguish the other vowels by length. A school led by Sándor Forrai from 1974 onward did, however, distinguish
i/
í,
o/
ó,
ö/
ő,
u/
ú, and
ü/
ű. The revival has become part of a significant ideological nationalist subculture present not only in Hungary (largely centered in Budapest), but also amongst the
Hungarian diaspora, particularly in the United States and Canada. Old Hungarian has seen other usages in the modern period, sometimes in association with or referencing
Hungarian neopaganism, similar to the way in which
Norse neopagans have taken up the Germanic
runes, and
Celtic neopagans have taken up the
ogham script for various purposes. == Epigraphy ==