Page:Poetry of the Magyars.djvu/47

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ON
MAGYAR LITERATURE.


Various are the opinions respecting the origin of the Hungarian people. Dr. F. Thomas has written three volumes to prove them to be de- scended from the ancient Egyptians.[1] The word Hungariai is of Mogol root, and was originally Ugur or Ingur, meaning foreigner or stranger. The Hungariai denominate themselves and their language Magyar, which was undoubtedly the name of one of the tribes from which they sprung. In the fourth century they took possession of the land of the Bashkir (Tartars), between the Volga, Tobol, and Jaik. They were subdued by the Turks in the sixth century; and in the seventh, eighth, and ninth, they associated themselves with the Chazars in Lebedia, (now the province of Katherinoslav,) and subsisted by robbery and

ravage. In the middle of the ninth century they

  1. Conjecturae de Origine, prima sede et lingua Hungarorum. Buda, 1806. 3 Vols.