Talk:Huns

A reconstruction of Attila - image

"A reconstruction of Attila by George S. Stuart, Museum of Ventura County." image shows Attila riding a horse with his foot in a stirrup.
The Huns didn't know the stirrup. It was invented by the Magyars. That George S. Stuart didn't know that, well... it's just an artifahrty picture. But using this false image in a supposedly scientific article reveals that the author doesn't have any knowledge of the subject either. From here on the article and it's author have lost all credibility and it become a cyber-rubbish in best case or an anti Hun/Magyar propaganda piece at worst.

Magyars arrived 500 years later from the Asiatic steppe. Huns (actualy Ounai meaning Travelers in Lithuanian language) were Lithuanians later called Samogitians or Prussians — Preceding unsigned comment added by ~2025-37225-16 (talk) 19:22, 29 November 2025 (UTC)

Predecessors and Sucessors

The huns formed a state, proto-state under Bleda and Attila. Thats the consensus (even if it was a "robbing state")

So, it should have their predecessors and sucessors¡

For predecessors:

-Since the xiong-Nu connection debate will rage for some time, no mention should be done.

-The Alans, conquered by huns

-The Greuthungi, conquered by huns

-The Thervingi, conquered in part by huns

-Roman Pannonia province: base under Attila

-Perhaps lombards, ruggi,sarmatian, and other conquered tribes

Successors:

-After Nedao:

-The kingdom of the Rugii

-The kingdom of the Gepids

-The kingdom of the Ostrogoths

-A suebian kingdom in the danube.

Bolghars, kutrigurs, utrigurs remain speculative, so no for the moment.

Comments?

Erorr in paragrapgh 'Extent of Hunnic territory'

"...the extant of Attila's empire has been exaggerated..."

It seems clear that 'extant' here should be 'extent,' however, the article does not seem to be editable. 217.45.26.42 (talk) 10:47, 27 October 2025 (UTC)

Fixed, thank you!--Ermenrich (talk) 14:34, 27 October 2025 (UTC)

Modern associations with savagery

In addition to the term of huns being used against the germans, this was also used the other way around. Is this addition appropriate:

In Nazi propaganda, historical references to the Huns were utilized to characterize Slavic peoples and the Soviet Union as a primitive "Asiatic" threat to European civilization. This narrative was most prominently detailed in the 1942 SS-Hauptamt brochure Der Untermensch, which depicted the populations of the Eastern Front as biological and spiritual successors to the nomadic "hordes" of Attila. By framing the war as a defense against a "new Hunnic storm," the Nazi regime sought to provide a historical and racial justification for the war of annihilation (Vernichtungskrieg) and the implementation of Generalplan Ost. BrooklynWilkes (talk) 12:16, 13 January 2026 (UTC) BrooklynWilkes (talk) 12:16, 13 January 2026 (UTC)

It’s a bit long for this article, but in principle it’s worth adding.—Ermenrich (talk) 12:43, 13 January 2026 (UTC)

References

Proposed addition to the Hun–Xiongnu section

I would like to propose a change to the paragraph in Huns#Relation to the Xiongnu and other peoples called Huns.

Current text:

"Recent supporters of a connection between the Huns and Xiongnu include Hyun Jin Kim and Etienne de la Vaissière..."

Proposed text:

"Recent supporters of a connection between the Huns and Xiongnu include Jingyi Gao, Hyun Jin Kim and Etienne de la Vaissière..." — and, added at the end of the paragraph: "Gao has supported this connection with newly identified shared etymologies between Xiongnu, Yeniseian and Hungarian.[1][2][3] Gnecchi-Ruscone et al. have supported this connection with ancient DNA evidence.[4]"

[1] Jingyi Gao, "Huns and Xiongnu identified by Hungarian and Yeniseian shared etymologies", Central Asiatic Journal, 56: 41–48, https://doi.org/10.13173/centasiaj.56.2013.0041 (2013).

[2] Jingyi Gao, "Huns and Xiongnu identified by Hungarian and Yeniseian shared etymologies II", Central Asiatic Journal, 64: 57–73, https://doi.org/10.13173/centasiaj.64.1-2.0057 (2021).

[3] Jingyi Gao, "Xiongnu and Huns identified by Xiongnu, Hungarian, Yeniseian and Sinitic shared etymologies", Central Asiatic Journal, 65: 43–68, https://doi.org/10.13173/CAJ/2022/1-2/6 (2022).

[4] G.A. Gnecchi-Ruscone, Z. Rácz, S. Liccardo, J. Lee, Y. Huang, L. Traverso, R. Radzevičiūtė, Z. Hajnal, A. Szécsényi-Nagy, B. Gyuris, O. Mateovics-László, Z. Bernert, T. Szeniczey, T. Hajdu, B. Mészáros, M. Bálint, B.G. Mende, B. Miller, Z. Samashev, A. Childebayeva, L. Djansugurova, P. Geary, H. Ringbauer, T. Vida, C. Jeong, W. Pohl, J. Krause, & Z. Hofmanová. "Ancient genomes reveal trans-Eurasian connections between the European Huns and the Xiongnu Empire", Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 122 (9) e2418485122, https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2418485122 (2025).

Please consider this and respond here. Harry Clyborne (talk) 00:38, 10 September 2026 (UTC)

Gao’s work is obviously fringe and it uses some imaginary text in Hunnish, a forgery called the Isfahan Codex. There are no texts in Hunnish. Furthermore, he’s pushing the discredited Hun-Hungarian connection. This should not be added to the article.—Ermenrich (talk) 11:56, 10 September 2026 (UTC)

Given there are no texts in Hunnish, a value of the resonstruction skyrokets, not downgrades. Gao's etymologies and scholarship accepted in leading journals and publishing companies in Europe and Asia. To say that he produces a fringe - outdated talk and this kind of argument is met nowhere outside Wikipedia. If he sees connection which was disregarded between Huns and Hungarians it means there is connection first of all in language. We can stop with that. As the etymologist of very good classical Chinese school rooted in antiquiy and ancient tables, he might see and catches what other scholars can't. He studied linguistics both in Estonia and China with outstanding comparative linguist. Do you have any argument about comparisons? Harry Clyborne (talk) 14:00, 10 September 2026 (UTC)

If the source of his etymological comparisons, the "Isfahan Codex", doesn't exist, then yes, he is WP:FRINGE and cannot be included on this page. I could just as well make up my own "Hunnic codex" and make connections to Hungarian using that. The very fact that he begins his paper by saying that Hungarian is "academically considered" a Uralic language is already a huge red flag.--Ermenrich (talk) 14:05, 10 September 2026 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply. Let me correct some factual points first and then restate the proposal.I hope this conversation is still alive?

The Isfahan Codex is not the source of Gao's comparisons. Or rather it is one of the many. In the 2013 paper the codex is only listed. What is actually compared is attested Hungarian (from the standard historical-etymological dictionary, TESz) with attested Yeniseian forms (Ket, Yugh, Kott, Arin, Pumpokol) from Werner's Vergleichendes Wörterbuch der Jenissej-Sprachen (2002) and Starostin (1982). Footnote 6 states: "Because this Hunnic source is controversial, the present study does not rely on it. Abandoning it, however, would not alter the present etymological study between Hungarian and Yeniseian." This is checkable: the sound correspondence proposed there (Hungarian tó/tava-, hó/hava-, só/sava- ~ Proto-Yeniseian *-egə/-ogə/-əgə) rests on ordinary Hungarian stem alternation. The 2021 and 2022 papers contain no codex material at all. So even if one sets the 2013 paper aside, the thesis stands on two later peer-reviewed papers. "His source doesn't exist" is simply not an accurate description of this work.

Gao's method is this: Gao is not a long-range comparativist and does not build on hypothetical proto-languages. He is a traditional etymologist. He compares attested languages directly and establishes regular sound correspondences between them (paper II, section IV, with 30 Hungarian–Yeniseian etymologies). This is the same logic by which Hungarian was connected with Mansi and Khanty: shared roots in basic vocabulary, with regular correspondences, are evidence of a historical connection. Gao applies that same procedure to Hungarian and Yeniseian. Whether one agrees with his conclusions is for linguists to decide. The method is the standard one, not a fringe one. (Correcting my earlier comment: Chinese rhyme tables play no role in the Hungarian–Yeniseian papers.). I know these 3 articles very well, they apply traditional etymological method. No long rage comparativism, no protolanguages.

"Academically considered a Uralic language." The same sentence names Mansi, Khanty, Estonian and Finnish as relatives. The paper's point concerns a layer of vocabulary. Citing Kenesei (2004), it notes that only about a fifth of Hungarian roots are of Uralic origin and some 30% are of uncertain origin. It then identifies part of that layer as Hunnic. This has nothing to do with the medieval descent legend the article dismisses. It is not about that. It's a linguistic claim based on etymologies.

Also, we see why this belongs in the Huns article. The paragraph in question lists recent supporters of a Hun–Xiongnu connection. Gao has three peer-reviewed papers in Central Asiatic Journal whose very titles state that thesis ("Huns and Xiongnu identified by..."). Listing him as a supporter is a verifiable statement of his position, not an endorsement of his etymologies. His Yeniseian identification also belongs to an established line of research (Pulleyblank, Vovin, Vajda, and most recently Bonmann & Fries 2025), which this article already reflects in its language section. And his work is not ignored: the 2025 PNAS study on the Huns and the Xiongnu cites his 2013 paper. [ТОЛЬКО если проверил, как именно цитируют: "His Hungarian–Yeniseian papers are also cited in [author], Transactions of the Philological Society (2026), doi:10.1111/1467-968x.70039."]

Proposal, as originally made:

"Recent supporters of a connection between the Huns and Xiongnu include Jingyi Gao, Hyun Jin Kim and Etienne de la Vaissière..." and, at the end of the paragraph: "Gao has supported this connection with newly identified shared etymologies between Xiongnu, Yeniseian and Hungarian.[1][2][3] Gnecchi-Ruscone et al. have supported this connection with ancient DNA evidence.[4]"

The second sentence of the addition (PNAS 2025) is independent of Gao. The article's archaeogenetics coverage currently stops at 2022, so it should be added in any case.

If you have a reliable source that criticises Gao's comparisons specifically, please post it and we can reflect it too. Otherwise, if we can't agree, I'd suggest asking for a third opinion. Harry Clyborne (talk) 02:21, 18 September 2026 (UTC)

thank you for your detailed response. What 2026 paper are you referring to? In Russian? I still find the articles suspicious and I have seen no evidence that Gao’s etymologies are anywhere near acceptance. Even if we were to accept his work as real scholarship, I see no evidence that Gao’s influence is as great as de la Vassiere or Kim’s, who are widely acknowledged in secondary sources as main proponents of the idea. According to Google Scholar, most citations of Gao's work are by Gao himself, though some other scholars have cited the 2013 article.—-Ermenrich (talk) 12:06, 18 September 2026 (UTC)

Also: GAO’s source of Hunnic vocabulary is the Isfahan Codex - which is a hoax. Without it, he’s really only arguing that these Hungarian words have Xiongnu etymologies, which is irrelevant to this article.—-Ermenrich (talk) 13:06, 18 September 2026 (UTC)

Thanks. Taking your points in order.

The 2026 paper. Apologies: the bracketed Russian text in my last comment was a drafting note to myself that I forgot to delete. I speak in several languages including Russian, in this language I make notes sometimes. To the point: the paper is in English: Orçun Ünal (Göttingen Academy of Sciences and Humanities), "Yeniseian as one of the earliest languages in contact with Turkic: newly proposed loanwords in both directions", Transactions of the Philological Society (2026), doi:10.1111/1467-968x.70039. Surveying the Yeniseian hypothesis (section 6), it says that after Ligeti, Pulleyblank and Vovin the hypothesis was extended to the Jie and "even to the European Huns by Gao (2012/2013, 2021), Huang and Li (2017), and Bonmann & Fries (2026)".

Influence and citations. I don't claim Gao is as prominent as Kim or de la Vaissière. The question is whether independent reliable sources identify him as a proponent, and they do, in telling company. The 2025 PNAS study cites his 2013 paper (ref. 7) for its statement that most scholars consider the names Xiongnu and Huns related while the nature of the linguistic connection is debated; refs 5–7 there are de la Vaissière 2005, Atwood 2012 and Gao 2013. Ünal (2026) names him alongside Bonmann & Fries. Self-citation is common in a small field and doesn't change that.

"Suspicious." These are peer-reviewed papers in Central Asiatic Journal, the journal that published de la Vaissière's "Huns et Xiongnu" (CAJ 49, 2005) and Vovin's "Did the Xiong-nu speak a Yeniseian language?" (CAJ 44, 2000), both foundational for this very section.

The Isfahan Codex. In the 2013 paper the codex forms are parallels, not the compared data, and footnote 6 disclaims them. The 2021 and 2022 papers don't use the codex at all. The 2022 paper explicitly leaves Hunnish out of the comparison because it "has only three attested lexical terms [Doerfer 1973]" — the same position this article takes. What it compares instead are Xiongnu words recorded in Chinese sources, e.g. 撐犁 'sky', with Yeniseian, Sinitic and Hungarian.

Relevance. "Hungarian words with Xiongnu etymologies" is exactly what makes this relevant. Pulleyblank, Vovin, Vajda and now Bonmann & Fries identify the language of the Xiongnu elite as Yeniseian. Gao argues that a layer of Hungarian vocabulary has Yeniseian cognates and reflects a Hunnic substratum. Right or wrong, that is an argument about a Xiongnu–Hun linguistic connection. That is why PNAS and Ünal cite him on that question.

"Acceptance." There is no such thing as a universally accepted etymology; that's a simplified picture of the field. Standard dictionaries disagree with one another, and Gao's own papers show this on the very words at issue. The Finnish etymological dictionary SSA (2001) had already doubted or rejected the Finno-Ugric etymologies of Hungarian ég, hegy and orr, and UEW and SSA disagree on the cognate set of tó 'lake'. Ünal's paper shows the same from another side. It finds most of 26 previously proposed Turkic–Yeniseian comparisons untenable. It rejects a reconstruction in Starostin, Dybo & Mudrak's Etymological Dictionary of the Altaic Languages. It judges two of Bonmann & Fries's three proposed Old Arin loanwords problematic — yet Bonmann & Fries are rightly cited on Wikipedia. A whole journal, Studia Etymologica Cracoviensia, is largely devoted to revising standard etymologies; Georg's paper on tengri appeared there. ⟦RAMER: says in one of his works⟧. I can add, that the work of this kind depends heavily on command of the languages involved. For context only: Gao has worked in Uralic studies at the Institute of the Estonian Language as well as on Sinitic, and he works directly from the primary Uralic and Yeniseian dictionaries. Moreoveror, Gao J. works as Head of the department in Pekin University of Foreing languages. It is big in China. Had he been drafting folk etymologies, he would be out of the job as the scholar with PHD degree and in capital. Speaking again about the opus not positions, none of this means the standard etymologies are obsolete or that the field needs a new paradigm. It means disagreement is the normal state of etymological research, so "not universally accepted" can't be the bar for naming a proponent. It's also worth noting that Ünal accepts only two earlier Turkic–Yeniseian comparisons at the proto-language level. One of them — Turkic tengri / Xiongnu 撐犁 'sky' from Yeniseian 'high', after Georg 2001 — is also among Gao's etyma (2013, no. 2; 2022, Table 1), where he credits Georg.

Proposal, revised in light of Ünal:

(a) The PNAS 2025 sentence, as before.

(b) In the Hun–Xiongnu paragraph, or in the language section, which already mentions the Yeniseian hypothesis (Vajda 2013): "The hypothesis that the Xiongnu spoke a Yeniseian language has been extended to the European Huns by Jingyi Gao and by Svenja Bonmann and Simon Fries.[Ünal 2026][Gao 2013, 2021][Bonmann & Fries 2026]" This follows a reliable source's own characterisation almost word for word, so it shouldn't raise a WP:DUE problem. I still think the original "recent supporters" wording is justified, but I'd be content with this. Harry Clyborne (talk) 06:23, 19 September 2026 (UTC)

I’m sorry, but the fact that Gao somehow managed to get this published does not indicate that it is not WP:FRINGE. We have a scholar scare quoting that Hungarian is a Uralic language to start his paper, using a hoax source, and offering frankly improbable etymologies that are not taken up by other Uralicists. The fact that one or two people who don’t know any better cite him is irrelevant- we don’t take our linguistic information from genetics papers. Fries and Bonmann, who are experts in linguistics and are widely cited, don’t cite Gao, even though he theoretically would support their position. Why not? Because his work is obviously fringe.

Are you by any chance Gao yourself or connected to him? If so, you should be aware of Wikipedia’s wp:Conflict of interest rules.—-Ermenrich (talk) 11:55, 19 September 2026 (UTC)

I'm not Gao, and I'm not required to say more."Fringe" needs a source. So far the fringe characterisation is your own assessment. WP:FRINGE concerns ideas that depart significantly from mainstream scholarship, and it asks us to distinguish them from respectable minority views. That distinction is made by independent sources, not by editors. Please point to a historical linguist who characterises Gao's comparisons as fringe. "Not taken up" is not "refuted".Who cites him. You say only "one or two people who don't know any better" cite him. The authors of the 2025 PNAS study include Walter Pohl, whom this article quotes on exactly this question, and Patrick Geary. They cite Gao 2013 (ref. 7) alongside de la Vaissière 2005 and Atwood 2012 (refs 5–6) on the linguistic link between the names Xiongnu and Hun. I agree we don't take linguistic information from genetics papers. That citation shows who the Hun–Xiongnu literature treats as participants in the debate, not whether Gao is right. The linguistic source is Ünal (2026) in Transactions of the Philological Society, by a Turkologist at the Göttingen Academy. It lists Gao among the scholars who extended the Yeniseian hypothesis to the European Huns.Bonmann & Fries. "They don't cite him, therefore he's fringe" is an argument from silence. Ünal, publishing in the same journal a year later, does cite him on this point.The objections so far are not linguistic. No specific comparison of Gao's has been criticised. The one textual point, the "scare quotes", was mistaken: the paper's first sentence contains none. On the codex: the 2022 paper excludes Hunnish from comparison because it "has only three attested lexical terms [Doerfer 1973]" — the same position this article takes. The 2021 and 2022 papers don't use the codex at all.Contested is not fringe. There is no universally accepted etymology. Gao's own papers show this on the very words at issue. The Finnish etymological dictionary SSA (2001) had already doubted or rejected the Finno-Ugric etymologies of Hungarian ég, hegy and orr, and UEW and SSA disagree on the cognate set of tó 'lake'. Vovin's Yeniseian Xiongnu thesis appeared in CAJ (2000) and was long a minority view; de la Vaissière's "Huns et Xiongnu" appeared in the same journal (2005). Starostin, Dybo and Mudrak's Etymological Dictionary of the Altaic Languages rests on a hypothesis most Western linguists reject, yet it is cited as a standard reference, Ünal included. Robbeets's Transeurasian hypothesis is disputed, yet it was published in Nature (2021) and is reported with attribution. The Leiden school's dictionaries, such as Kroonen's Proto-Germanic, differ from other schools on many etymologies. Ünal himself rejects most of 26 earlier Turkic–Yeniseian comparisons. Of the two he accepts, one is Turkic tengri / Xiongnu 撐犁 'sky' from Yeniseian 'high' (after Georg 2001), which is also among Gao's etyma (2013, no. 2; 2022, Table 1).Relevance. Pulleyblank, Vovin, Vajda and now Bonmann & Fries identify the language of the Xiongnu elite as Yeniseian. Gao argues that a layer of Hungarian vocabulary has Yeniseian cognates and reflects a Hunnic substratum. Right or wrong, that is an argument about a Xiongnu–Hun linguistic connection. Its aim is linguistic: it doesn't ask this article to change its genetic or historical picture, only to record a published linguistic argument.Gao's standing, verifiably: he trained and worked in Uralic linguistics (Institute of the Estonian Language; universities of Tallinn and Tartu), is now at Beijing International Studies University, and has published a peer-reviewed series on this question.Proposal. The original proposal stands, together with the PNAS 2025 sentence, which is independent of Gao. This article already notes there is no consensus on the Hunnic language, listing Turkic, Mongolic, Iranian and Yeniseian proposals. If editors prefer to keep the linguistic evidence apart, let's add a short subsection on linguistic evidence for the Hun–Xiongnu relation: Pulleyblank, Vovin, Vajda, Bonmann & Fries and Gao, each attributed. That is the natural place for a published hypothesis.If your position is that linguistic evidence on this question is itself fringe, there's nothing left to argue; let's ask for a third opinion. Harry Clyborne (talk) 12:49, 19 September 2026 (UTC)

Read Wikipedia’s definition of wp:FRINGE. Gao is not a scholar of any stature and his rather crazy ideas (assuming a Hunnic substrate in Hungarian based on etymologies no one follows but him and employing a hoax source!) are not getting added to the article.—-Ermenrich (talk) 16:36, 19 September 2026 (UTC)

And this (I'm not required to say more) absolutely looks like an admission of some sort of wp:COI.—-Ermenrich (talk) 16:39, 19 September 2026 (UTC)

I am interested in this topic, and it is important that the article reflects relevant scientific advances. That is my stake here. Since you raised the question, I'd ask the same in return: do you have any connection to scholars on the other side of this debate?

I have read WP:FRINGE. It asks for independent sources, and none has been offered. "Not a scholar of any stature" and "crazy ideas" are assessments, not sources. Calling a published scholar's work "crazy" is name-calling, not argument, and I still haven't received a single linguistic argument about any of his comparisons. "Are not getting added" is ipse dixit — the argument of the master of the house, not of science or reason. No editor owns an article (WP:OWN); content is decided by consensus.

On stature. Within East Asian comparative linguistics, Gao's standing is roughly what Dolgopolsky's was in European comparative linguistics. He trained and worked in Uralic linguistics (Institute of the Estonian Language; universities of Tallinn and Tartu) and in Sinitic, is now at Beijing International Studies University, and has published a peer-reviewed series on this question in the specialist journal of the field.

On Bonmann & Fries. Ünal (2026), in the same journal, judges two of their three proposed Old Arin loanwords problematic. In the same survey he lists Gao among the scholars who extended the Yeniseian hypothesis to the European Huns. So the most recent specialist assessment criticises Bonmann & Fries and includes Gao in the same line of research. Neither is fringe for that reason.

Next step. It is strange that only two of us are discussing this. I am requesting a third opinion (WP:3O) and posting a neutral notice at WikiProject Linguistics, so that editors with a background in historical linguistics can weigh in. Harry Clyborne (talk) 20:08, 19 September 2026 (UTC)

I am coming from the WP:LING notice. Gao's work in Hunnic here is obviously fringe and should not be mentioned in the article. I concur with Ermenrich. Kisseran (talk) 02:57, 20 September 2026 (UTC)

Thanks for joining. Two points.

First, "Gao's work in Hunnic" misdescribes it. Gao does not work from Hunnic material: his 2022 paper explicitly excludes Hunnish because only three words are attested (Doerfer 1973). His comparisons are between attested Hungarian and Yeniseian, and Xiongnu glosses recorded in Chinese sources.

Second, consensus is not a vote (WP:NOTVOTE). It is determined by the strength of arguments grounded in policy and sources. "Obviously fringe" and "I concur" are assessments. WP:FRINGE requires independent sources showing that a view departs significantly from the mainstream. The only independent specialist source offered in this discussion, Ünal (2026) in Transactions of the Philological Society, lists Gao among those who extended the Yeniseian hypothesis to the European Huns and does not call it fringe.

Since you come from WikiProject Linguistics: could you point to any published assessment of Gao's comparisons, or give a linguistic reason why a specific comparison fails? If such a source exists, I'll accept it. If not, the fringe label rests on editors' opinions alone. Harry Clyborne (talk) 04:32, 20 September 2026 (UTC)

First, please familiarize yourself with WP:LLMTALK. Using a LLM to make comments is highly frowned upon and will not serve to convince anyone.

Second, WP:FRINGE does not "require independent sources showing that a view departs from the mainstream". Talk pages are not subject to content policies in article space, so I don't need to cite any sources as long as I don't write "Gao's theory is fringe" in the article.

You asked for a third opinion, and you got one. I'm happy to offer a more in-depth analysis if you use your own words. Kisseran (talk) 05:57, 20 September 2026 (UTC)

I understand everything I post. About above I did not know, thanks.

First of all so far, where are the arguments? I do not see anything.

Where is the one linguist who pointed out that Gaoian works are this fringe? What is the mainstream? I do not understand it. Offer me your analysis, so far I did not see anything. At all. Harry Clyborne (talk) 06:22, 20 September 2026 (UTC)

Any like of argumentation I observed stemmed from arguments "I am the master of this house" and "This is the fringe". Both of them are not convincing. Harry Clyborne (talk) 06:25, 20 September 2026 (UTC)

As I said above using my own thoughts and arguments, a lot of etymologies are disputed, from Pokorny 3-5 etymologies under the dispute every year and it still makes his Indo-European dictionary classics of the etymological work. Harry Clyborne (talk) 06:34, 20 September 2026 (UTC)

Well, if your position that you do not have to convince me and you do not have to cite linguistics, let me know. I hope your position does not exclude reason - so far particular works of Gao concerning the Xiongnu never has been criticised for being non-mainstream by anyone. Harry Clyborne (talk) 06:47, 20 September 2026 (UTC)

Also, in physics and math, and in the second I have the background, everything is also disputed all the time. Does not make math to be non-math and to lose its scientific value. Harry Clyborne (talk) 07:15, 20 September 2026 (UTC)

Consensus might not be a vote, but you clearly don’t have one. It’s a bit rich to ask for second opinions and then dismiss them like that when they aren’t what you want.—-Ermenrich (talk) 12:12, 20 September 2026 (UTC)

You have written about in-depth analysis you were able to provide. Let us keep this in mind and talk specifics. Gao proposes (2021: 70): Hungarian ö ~ Ket ɨ, as in csönd 'quietness' ~ Ket dɨˀń 'quiet' and pöcs 'penis' ~ Ket bɨˀś 'penis'. What is in your opinion wrong with this etymology? I am asking about one particular etymology and not about entire paradigme. Harry Clyborne (talk) 11:51, 21 September 2026 (UTC)

my opinion about his etymologies doesn’t matter. What matters is no other scholars have taken these up or even bothered to refute them because no one else is pre-supposing a Hunnic substratum in Hungarian. Gao is simply outside the mainstream and had no influence on other scholars of the Huns or Hungarian linguistics.—-Ermenrich (talk) 12:20, 21 September 2026 (UTC)

Well, you say about the assesments of other scholars. Let us see. Ünal (2026: 10), in Transactions of the Philological Society, asseses the etymology of Gao as follows: "ranks among the most promising Turkic–Yeniseian etymologies proposed to date". He writes that about Gao's comparison of Turkic tengri with the Xiongnu gloss 撐犁 'sky' and Yeniseian *tɨŋgVr- 'high. It is one of the comparisons that Gao is using for the Xiongnu–Yeniseian link (2013, no. 2; 2022, Table 1) where he cites Georg 2001. It is hardly that the absence of further assesment is the rejection - this work is of 10 years old, the specialsts of few. Many papers including some I know (not Gao) recieve no commentaries at all. Therefore science in the scientific literarute can mean that everyting is fine. Harry Clyborne (talk) 12:53, 21 September 2026 (UTC)

Scilence in scholarly literature I mean, I am sorry. Harry Clyborne (talk) 12:55, 21 September 2026 (UTC)

That etymology does not originate with Gao. You’ve shown exactly one linguist engaging with his work. Posting massive WP:walls of text for every response does not make your arguments any more convincing.

Our job is not to assess the merits of GAO’s scholarship, it’s to determine whether he deserves mention in this article. He does not, nor, I would venture, in discussions of the Hun-Yenisseian hypothesis when other scholars working on it ignore his work. You keep ignoring the fact that the basic premise of GAO’s work (Hunnic substrate in Hungarian) is not shared by mainstream linguistics.

At any rate, this discussion is going in circles. It’s clear you have no consensus to add this. I’d suggest moving on.—-Ermenrich (talk) 13:52, 21 September 2026 (UTC)

a sentence in the lead

• Currently: Either under Hunnic hegemony, or fleeing from it, several central and eastern European peoples established kingdoms in the region, including not only Goths and Alans, but also Vandals, Gepids, Heruli, Suebians, Scirians, and Rugians.
• I propose: Several central and eastern European peoples seem to have maintained kingdoms under Hunnic hegemony, including not only the recently arrived Amali-led Goths, but also Gepids, Sarmatians, Heruli, Suebi, Sciri, and Rugii, who were all already associated with the Carpathian-Danubian region before the Huns arrived. Or something like that.

There are several small tweaks, most of which should be understandable if you look up the WP articles involved. Concerning the Vandals and Alans: the Vandals had lived in the area already a long time, whereas the Alans where new like the Goths. However both groups famously left the region, ending up in Gaul, Spain and North Africa as well as the Roman military. Maybe some Alans hung around in the Balkans, but this does not seem worth mentioning. The Sarmatians were however back among the local kingdoms after Attila died. Andrew Lancaster (talk) 13:41, 20 September 2026 (UTC)

Fine by me!—-Ermenrich (talk) 13:53, 20 September 2026 (UTC)

Does the section Huns#Subject peoples appear in order after this change?—-Ermenrich (talk) 14:04, 20 September 2026 (UTC)

Sorry I should have looked at the body, but yes it actually seems closer to my lead text than the current one. Concerning the list it includes Sarmatians, but it also lists Alans, which is not a big problem (see my remark above), and typical of Heather given his career specialization, it gives more information about the Goths. The spellings in the body are also different to our current lead. (Also in the source itself: "Attila’s Hunnic Empire certainly encompassed two and probably three separate groups of Goths, along with contingents of Gepids, Sarmatians, Heruli, Alans, Rugi, Suevi, and Sciri.") Concerning the spelling of Rugii/Rugi there is a discussion on the article and the article talk page about this. (The double i is often given precedence because Tacitus used it I think.) I do think Heather has missed some lesser known sources that have been noted in other secondary sources when he writes that "only the Gepids, Sarmatians, and Suevi had been there prior to the 370s". I think our wording "some of these groups were resettled along the Danube by the Huns" also implies a bit more certainty than Heather's own wording ("it is unclear how many of these groups initially moved to the Middle Danube independently (as the Goths and Alans involved in the invasions of 405–408 clearly did), and how many were resettled there by the Huns"). So I would question the little bit which implies that Huns had a Roman-style settlement policy. I think the Huns came last to the Danube and as Heather himself sort of admits, we don't have much evidence about how the peoples were really organized. --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 15:12, 20 September 2026 (UTC)