The Hungarian language and its imagined antiquity

Since the turn of the 19th century, the relatedness of Hungarian with other Finno-Ugric (Uralic) languages has, at times, given rise to protests and conspiracy theories in Hungary. ‘Relatedness’ with less well known minorities across Northern Eurasia is at odds with the Romantic Nationalist narrative, which was instrumentalized in early nation-building: Hungarians as descendants of the Huns. The Orbán regime, in power from 2010 to 2026, began to semi-officially endorse the romantic narrative. This may involve rehabilitating linguistic exceptionalism and the myths of Hungarian as an ‘ancient’ language with supreme internal logic and stability. However, there is very little linguistic substance to back up these myths. Imagined antiquity is constructed by referring to symbols of antiquity (such as the ‘Old Hungarian Runic script’) and with the help of emotional rhetoric focusing on perceived ‘uniqueness’ of the Hungarian language, rather than by invented substance.